The police have foiled the proposed visit by Congress leaders to the Kalikota-Suramma project in Jagtial district, to stage protest demanding that the government execute the irrigation project, by arresting several Congress leaders and detaining them in their houses in Rajanna-Sircilla and Jagtial districts on Monday.
The leaders of Congress party in undivided Karimnagar called for ‘chalo Kalikota-Suramma’ project on Monday and secured permission from the court. However, the police detained TPCC working president Ponnam Prabhakar, Vemulawada Congress leader Adi Srinivas and others in Vemulawada and MLC T. Jeevan Reddy and DCC president Adluri Laxman Kumar and others in Jagtial.
Speaking on the occasion, TPCC working president Ponnam Prabhakar condemned the police move to detain them in the name of preventive arrests on the pretext of COVID-19. Alleging that the police were working at the diktats of the TRS government, he asked whether COVID-19 rules would not apply to the ruling party leaders? He flayed the police for suppressing the democratic rights of the Opposition parties by not allowing them to lodge protests and demand the government to fulfil the promises made to the people.
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Reminding that the state government had laid the foundation stone for the Kalilota-Suramma project two years ago (June 22, 2018) on the eve of elections, he said that the government had not taken up the project in spite of completion of two years after laying foundation stone as it was aimed to irrigation 48,000 acres of lands in Kathalapur and Medipalli mandals in Jagtial district.
“When we are demanding that the government execute the promised irrigation project, they are detaining us by using the police force,” he said and threatened to launch monthly agitations at the project site if the government fails to take up the project within one month.