HANAMKONDA: The workers of TRS, led by a corporator’s husband, allegedly beat up farmers of Devannapet village in Hanamkonda district on Wednesday for objecting to holding the pink party’s Vijaya Garjana programme, scheduled for November 29, in their agriculture fields.
Their contention was that if the public meeting was allowed, the boundaries of their land holdings would get effaced and as the party workers would use gravel for making arrangements for the public meeting, the soil too would be affected, making it difficult for them to raise any crops in the future. The trouble started when the leaders, including former deputy chief minister Kadiyam Srihari, Government Chief Whip Dasyam Vinay Bhaskar and Wardhannapet MLA Aroori Ramesh tried to enter the farmers’ agriculture fields. While preventing the TRS leaders from entering their fields, the farmers asked them to look elsewhere to find land for their programme.
Enraged by the farmers’ audacity, Division 65 Corporator Gugulothu Divya Rani’s husband Raju Naik along with his supporters roughed up the villagers in the presence of TRS leaders, who later left the scene in a huff.
On instructions from the party’s leadership, the three leaders arrived in Devannapet in Hasanparthy mandal for finalising a place for the public meeting. As the land near the village is close to the Hyderabad-Warangal Highway No 163, they decided to finalise the place but the farmers stopped them in their tracks.
While obstructing the leaders’ visit, the villagers also staged a protest and stood their ground even though the visitors tried their best to convince them to let the meeting be held in their fields.
According to the farmers, they requested Srihari and Vinay Bhaskar to look elsewhere to find a place for public meeting since the cotton crop is ready for harvesting. They told the leaders that it was a very crucial time for the crop and if it is disturbed, their entire investment would go down the drain. After the public meeting, the land would not be fit for raising fresh crops as gravel would have been used for levelling the land.
Even as they were requesting the leaders to leave them alone, the Telangana Rashtra Samiti workers pushed them around and later beat them up. Speaking to Express, Hasanparthy Inspector K Sridhar Rao said he has not received any complaint. “If we get a complaint, we will look into the matter,” he said.