About 70 activists protesting the Centre’s move to bifurcate the State were arrested when they tried to take out a ‘Chalo Assembly’ rally near Indira Park on Monday afternoon, shouting slogans in favour of the united State.
Those arrested include president of Mala Mahanadu Karem Sivaji, Chalasani Srinivas of the Intellectuals’ JAC and Vadithya Sankar Naik, president of Girijan Vidyarthi Samaikhya.
MPs Y. Satyanarayana Choudhary (Rajya Sabha) and K. Narayana (Machilipatnam), several Ministers and a dozen MLAs from different political parties including the Congress and Telugu Desam took part in the rally organised by Samaikyandhra Employees’ JAC and addressed the agitators.
Ministers including Sailajanath, Erasu Pratap Reddy, Ganta Srinivasa Rao and Pithani Satyanarayana and former Ministers Gade Venkat Reddy and Kothapalli Subbarayudu sought extension of the Assembly session by four to six weeks, to facilitate a detailed discussion on the draft A.P. State Reorganisation Bill.
They said only about 50 to 55 MLAs had expressed their views and another 200 wish to do so.
The speakers condemned the manner in which the Centre was going ahead with the bifurcation process and recalled that the three States of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand were created only after the resolutions were passed by the respective Assemblies of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh into consideration.
The leaders, who addressed the Employee’ JAC, also visited the relay hunger strike camp organised by the Samaikyandhra Students’ JAC, led by JAC convenor A. Krishna Babu.
APNGOs Association president P. Ashok Babu also addressed the students.
