Kapu leader Mudragada Padmanabham on Sunday demanded that the State government should come out with the reasons for preventing him from touring the villages and meeting people from the community.
In a letter addressed to Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, a copy of which was released to the media, Mr. Padmanabham wondered why the police had stopped him from undertaking a tour of the Gannavaram Assembly constituency in the district scheduled to begin on Sunday morning. “The Peddapuram DSP met me on Saturday night and told me that I was not supposed to undertake the tour as per the rules. Since I insisted on the rule position, he said the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in 2009 prohibited such tours,” he said in the letter and asked how Mr. Naidu had violated the guidelines during his ‘Padayatra’ and the recent ‘Intintiki Telugu Desam’ programme.
Mr. Padmanabham also made a mention of the ‘Gadapa Gadapaki YSRCP’ and the ‘YSR Kutumbam’ programmes, in which leaders of the Opposition party were touring the State. “It is clear that the State government is preventing me from meeting people from my caste, who could not afford to come all the way to my house and extend their solidarity to the movement undertaken for achieving BC status to the Kapus,” he said.
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Wondering why the State government had failed to adhere to the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court on liquor shops, the Kapu leader alleged that the rules were quoted only when the Kapus demanded the fulfilment of the poll promise made to them by the ruling party. “Whenever we are asking for the BC status, you people are speaking about the CBCID cases. If you are really keen on the cases, why don’t you speed up the investigation and take action against those who are responsible?” he asked.