The bandh called by the Opposition Telugu Desam Party(TDP), to condemn the attack on the party offices and senior TDP leader K. Pattabhiram’s house reportedly by the YSRCP cadres, was foiled by the police all over Chittoor district.
Right from Tuesday night, the police department had deployed personnel in all sensitive areas, and posted action teams at all important junctions and crossroads. In Kuppam, the constituency represented by TDP national president N. Chandrababu Naidu, the bandh effect remained nil.
In Chittoor, TDP MLC B.N. Rajasimhulu and party’s State general secretary V. Surendra Kumar were kept under house-arrest in the early hours of Wednesday, when they tried to organise a protest rally to the Gandhi Bomma Centre.
Surveillance intensified
Police had intensified surveillance at all the prominent TDP leaders in Madanapalle, Kuppam, Piler, Palamaner, GD Nellore, Puthalapattu, Srikalahasti, Satyavedu and Nagari Assembly constituencies.
Though some youth members of the TDP tried to converge at the main thoroughfares to protest the attacks, the police parties had acted swiftly in shifting them to the nearby police stations.
APSRTC (Chittoor region) Deputy Chief Traffic Manager M. Bhaskar said that all the buses in the region had plied normally.
“Though in a couple of places the disruption was felt for a few minutes, everything was normal later,” he said. All the business establishments functioned normally.
TDP State general secretary Surendra Kumar said that it was unfortunate that when the party cadres had sponsored the bandh as a peaceful means to protest the heinous attacks on the party offices, the YSRCP government had involved the police to foil the bandh.
