The war of words between leaders of Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and YSR Congress (YSRC) for the last couple of days resulted in clashes between activists of the two parties at Warangal and Hyderabad on Tuesday.
A tense situation prevailed for some time at the TRS and YSRC offices at Warangal and TRS headquarters in Hyderabad. The clash at Warangal ended up in police lathi-charge to disperse the groups, who torched two vehicles.
Scores of YSRC workers reached TRS office in Hanamkonda and burnt effigy of TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao protesting his remarks against former MLA and YSRC leader Konda Surekha. A group of students affiliated to TRS arrived there and clashed with the YSRC cadre.
Both exchanged blows and threw stones on each other. The tiff escalated further with more TRS youth joining them. They also attacked the residence and office of YSRC district president Ch. Srinivas Reddy.
The TRS youth torched two vehicles belonging to Mr. Reddy prompting the police to lathi-charge to disperse the clashing groups. A few TRS activists were also injured in the clash.
Cases were booked against 100 party workers of YSRC and 10 were taken into custody by the police on charges of attempt to murder and criminal trespass at Warangal on Tuesday evening.
According to the police, some YSRCP cadre who clashed with the TRS party workers, spilled petrol over them and tried to set Ch. Ramesh and M. Bikshapathi ablaze while severely injuring K. Vasudeva Reddy, J. Ramesh and Manoj.
Following the complaints from the TRS leaders, the police registered non-bailable cases under Sections 147, 148, 452, 324 and 307 (read with 149 of IPC) and Section 7 of Criminal Amendment Act that deal with criminal trespass, voluntarily hurting others, attempt to murder among others.
The police booked cases against all important leaders of the YSRCP including Konda Muralidhar, Konda Surekha, Ch. Srinivas Reddy, B. Sudheer Reddy, Ch. Srinivas, Kalyan Raj, N. Radha and others.
Meanwhile, tension prevailed in the town till late hours and police in large numbers were seen patrolling the lanes and by lanes of Hanamkonda and keeping an eye at the residences of some political leaders.
The provocation on Tuesday came from Ms. Surekha who had been instigating the TRS cadre since Mr. KCR’s rebuttal of her statement asking the TRS chief’s family to end lives for realising Telangana and instead asking her family to commit suicide. It followed burning of Ms. Surekha’s effigies by TRS workers on Monday and that of KCR on Tuesday by YSRC activists.
Heavy police force was deployed at the residences of Ms. Surekha and Mr. Srinivas Reddy to prevent any escalation in the situation.
Police averted a possible clash at Telangana Bhavan in Hyderabad when YSRC cadre reached there and tried to stage a protest. The police arrested YSRC workers and took them away before TRS workers could retaliate.
Meanwhile, TRS MLAs -- K.T. Rama Rao, E. Rajender, D. Vinay Bhaskar, M. Bikshapathi and others said they would not keep quiet if the hired goons of YSRC attacked TRS cadre.
“We will teach a fitting lesson”, they said. On the other hand, Ms. Surekha alleged that it was TRS which had been dictating terms to leaders of all parties and exploiting people of the region.
