The police took Telugu Desam Party leaders into custody near NTR Circle here while they were proceeding towards PWD Grounds where Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy was scheduled to address a public meeting after inaugurating Pulichintala project.
The police, on Saturday, took them into preventive custody and sent them to various police stations. Mylavaram MLA and TDP district president Devineni Umamaheswara Rao and Vijayawada (East) in-charge Gadde Rammohan Rao and others were sent to Patamata police station.
TDP Urban president Buddha Venkanna and youth leader Devineni Chandrasekhar were not allowed to step out of their houses.
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The TDP gave a bandh call to protest the Central government decision to divide the State, on Saturday. The TD leaders organised various protest programmes as part of the bandh call.
At Pandit Nehru Bus Station, the party workers staged a protest in the early hours and stopped the movement of buses for a while. The workers also conducted ‘pullatlu’ programme. They served pullatlu, akin to dosas, to register their protest.
The woman activists of party led by Mr. Rammohan took out a mock funeral procession of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi near NTR circle and raised slogans against the bifurcation of State.
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On the other hand, the impact of bandh was minimal. The police foiled the attempts to enforce bandh. The police kept a strict vigil on movement of vehicles on Bandar Road to avoid barging of opposition parties into chief minister’s programme venue.
Machilipatnam MP Konakalla Narayana condemned the arrests. The government wanted to carryout the inauguration programme though the people were agitated over division. The people were registering their protest in a peaceful manner. The TDP leaders were house-arrested, and it was against the democracy, he said.