The residents of Vemulaghat, one of the Mallannasagar villages which has been vehemently opposing the construction of reservoir, continued their agitation for the 59th day on Tuesday.
Continuing the agitation assumes importance on two counts - one is that it is being continued after holding a meeting at panchayat office on Monday where the pressure being mounted by government to sell lands for the reservoir under GO 123 was discussed in length; and the second one is that it sends a clear signal to the government that the entire village is still reluctant to surrender despite all other surrounding villages doing so in the agitation against the proposed reservoir. Residents of Etigaddakishtapur, Pallepahad, Singaram, Lakshmapur and Erravalli villages have accepted to surrender their land after persuasion by Irrigation Minister T. Harish Rao.
“We have decided to continue our agitation till we achieve our goal. We will wait and see about one month on how the residents of other surrendered villages are getting benefitted by the government after signing Form I and Form II,” said a resident of the village on condition of anonymity.
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In a related development, the police have arrested G. Jayaraj, CPI (M) leader who is in the forefront of Mallannasagar agitation, at Etigaddaskishtapur on Tuesday, and shifted him to Toguta police station.
Circle Inspector Ramanjaneyulu has confirmed the arrest. With this, those arrested in the case related to pelting stones on the police and trying to hold ‘rasta roko’ on Rajiv Rahadari on July 24 reached three. Party senior leaders A. Mallesh and G Bhaskar were already arrested few days ago.
The only other political leader yet to be arrested in the case is Vanteru Pratap Reddy of the Telugu Desam Party. Once he is arrested, the police hope to pick up all the 20 accused from the village.
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