Close on the heels of the Tirupati airport incident, Telugu Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu has decided to participate in road shows in Kurnool, Chittoor, Tirupati, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada and Guntur.
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He will kick-start them from Thursday as part of the party’s election campaign for urban local body elections. The exact schedule is yet to be announced, but tentatively he will start his road shows from Kurnool.
Mr. Naidu’s decision assumes significance in the wake of his detention at Tirupati airport on Monday. The police told him that he cannot enter the temple town owing to the model code of conduct for the ongoing municipal elections. He was supposed to participate in protest programmes in front of Gandhi statues in Chittoor and Tirupati.
The former Chief Minister’s road shows in Tirupati and Chittoor are likely to pass through the areas where he was supposed to stage a sit-in protest. He is likely to raise a few key issues, including steep rise in property taxes, alleged intimidation by YSRCP leaders, alleged false cases foisted against the TDP leaders, kidnapping of TDP candidates, forcible withdrawal of nominations, role of volunteers in the electioneering, etc,.
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Mr. Naidu, interacting with the party leaders via teleconference on Tuesday, stressed on the need to put up the fight against intimidation. The TDP would take legal action to ensure that no official or government employee would dare to take wrong decisions, he said.