YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) MLA RK Roja strongly condemned the police highhandedness at the mass hunger strike organised by the Left parties in Tirupati on Thursday.

Roja, who was highly critical of Chandrababu Naidu’s government using the police force during the bandh, said “the State bandh had witnessed large scale preventive arrests of opposition leaders. Even, women, who were peacefully protesting, were roughed up by the police meting out a humiliating treatment.” She termed the TDP rule as ‘Nara Nayeem Palana’ becoming dreadful and looting everyone in the State.

Stressing on all the sections joining together against the TDP government, she said not only political parties but the people should also come out openly for a mass movement to throw out the anti-people government.

Coming down heavily on the TDP and BJP on the Special Category Status (SCS), she said that these parties in their manifestoes committed to SCS and their leaders umpteen times asserted to achieve SCS, but the same parties and leaders under the pretext of technical reason going back on the issue.

It is most ridiculous and also virtual betrayal of the five crore people of the State,” she averred. YSRCP leaders including Tirupati MP V Varaprasad and Chandragiri MLA Chevireddy Bhaskar Reddy also condemned the large scale arrest of leaders and police highhandedness on the activists. They criticised the TDP government for resorting to such undemocratic means to suppress the opposition fighting on a genuine issue.

CPM district secretary K Kumar Reddy said that there is no need of using force on the opposition parties protesting on public issues which is the democratic right. Interestingly, the YSRCP dominated the mass hunger strike with its high profile leaders and followers outnumbering the CPM and CPI which organised the protest against police highhandedness, relegating them to backstage.

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BY M. DIVYA SRI