Tension mounted here after Union Minister for Textiles Kavuri Sambasiva Rao’s camp office came under attack on Tuesday.
TDP activists allegedly led by their MLA Chintamaneni Prabhakar from Denduluru gate-crashed into the premises and allegedly damaged office property. The Minister’s followers led by city Congress president Katti Ramu tried to defend the office against the attack. In the process, Congress and TDP workers came to blows.
City DSP M. Rajani told The Hindu that efforts were under way to identify the vandals with the help of video footage and a case would be registered accordingly.
It all happened just before the arrival of Mr. Sambasiva Rao for a brief visit in his native constituency. The road leading to the camp office was sealed and literally taken over by the police a few hours before the Minister’s arrival in anticipation of trouble from Samaikyandhra protesters. When Samaikyandhra JAC members were trying to break through the police cordon to reach the camp office, Mr. Prabhakar and his followers managed to sneak into the office. The pieces of broken chairs strewn all over bore tell-tale evidence of the vandalism. In the morning, the TDP MLA made a futile bid to block the Minister’s convoy by lying across the Kolkata-Chennai National Highway-5 near the toll plaza at Kalaparru upon his arrival from the airport at Gannavaram. Mr. Sambasiva Rao however gave him the slip and headed for Dwaraka Tirumala to offer prayers at the Sri Venkateswara Swamy temple.
Addressing the Samaikyandhra protesters outside his camp office, the Minister said he had never cowed down to threats and attacks during his political career spanning over four and a half decades.
Without naming the TDP, he accused certain ‘vested’ interests of instigating innocent people against him in the guise of Samaikyandhra agitation.
Rejecting the vociferous demand from the agitators for his resignation, Mr. Sambasiva Rao observed, “I have been serving the Congress for over 47 years irrespective of positions and favours. I will resign the moment I come to know that my plea against bifurcation of the State has failed to cut ice with my party high command.”
The II Town Police booked a case against Mr. Prabhakar for allegedly creating a scene at Mr. Sambasiva Rao's camp office.
MLA booked
Another case was booked against the MLA in the Pedpadu police station for trying to ‘wrongfully’ restrain the Minister on his way from the Gannavaram airport to Eluru.
