President of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) N Chandrababu Naidu was taken into preventive custody for staging a sit-in at Maganuru village in Mahbubnagar district over the issue of minimum support price (MSP) for paddy.
Mr. Chandrababu, who reached Devarakadra market-yard today morning, interacted with farmers to know the hardship they were facing in selling paddy.
He said, “Farmers are facing trouble only because the state is being headed by an inept Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy who lacked any administrative experience.”
The party organised road blockades across the state on the same issue. Supporters of Telangana tried to disrupt the TDP president’s programme, but were stopped by the police.
Later, Mr. Chandrababu staged a sit-in on the road at Maganuru as part of demonstrations over the paddy MSP issue.
Police took him into custody and shifted to Krishna police station at Makhtal and was let off subsequently.
At Anasagaram village in Krishna district, farmers unloaded heaps of paddy on the National Highway and set them on fire to register their protest. TDP MLA Devineni Umamaheswara Rao, who led this agitation at Gollapudi near Vijayawada, was arrested.
The TDP protests continued in other districts that resulted in traffic snarls for several hours.
