As many as 40 Telugu Desam MLAs and MLCs who sat on a dharna at the Chief Minister’s conference hall in the Secretariat in protest against the government’s failure to provide 7-hour power supply to the farm sector as promised, were arrested late at night on Monday. The TD MLAs laid siege to the CM office on the sixth floor and began the dharna from 4.30pm. They continued their agitation till late in the night, forcing the police to throw a cordon around C Block at the Secretariat that houses the CM’s office.
After obtaining permission from chief secretary Minni Mathew, police took the MLAs into custody. The MLAs accused chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy of misleading people on power supply and said that rural areas continued to reel under power cuts while crops withered away, affecting the industries and other sectors. The Chief Minister met them and said the power situation would improve in the next two days. He said he had held discussions with the coal and power ministries. However, when the TD leaders continued to target the CM, he got annoyed at their behaviour.
Saying that the TD leaders were staging a political drama, the Chief Minister left the conference room and went back to his chambers. He returned after half-an-hour. “This is not the way to behave. It is not proper that you disrupt the functioning of the Secretariat.” The MLAs asserted that they would continue their protest till the CM gave a concrete assurance and declared a “power emergency.”
“We will not move till we got an assurance on compensation to farmers who lost crops due to power cuts, and provision of medicare on a war footing among other demands,” Mr Revanth Reddy, MLA told this newspaper.