Accusing Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao of being a hypocrite, Professor M Kodandram Reddy condemned the virtual house arrest of several leaders and the detention of hundreds of activists who were planning to take part in the ‘Spirit of Million March’.
On Saturday, the Telangana Joint Action Committee, the CPI (M), several left parties and people’s organisations had planned to take out a rally at Tank Bund in Hyderabad to commemorate the historic ‘Million March’ of 2011 under the united Andhra Pradesh to mark its anniversary.
However, the police refused to give permission for the march and even closed the roads leading to Tank Bund.
Notwithstanding police orders, the organizations planned to go ahead with their programme scheduled from 1 pm to 4 pm. As a result, police kept political leaders like Kodandram under virtual house arrest against partaking in the programme. They also detained several activists from the across the state who were planning to take part in the programme.
Speaking to TNM, Kondandram said that on one hand the Chief Minister wanted the Centre to maintain a federal spirit and uphold democracy, but he objected to the same when people demand it from his government. “This is sheer hypocrisy,” he said.
“You (KCR) want democracy at the national level. In a similar fashion, we also want to protect and preserve the democracy of the people in the state,” he said.
Kodandram pointed out that KCR wanted to erase and rewrite the history of Telangana statehood in a way it favoured him.
“It was a collective struggle by the people of the state. He (KCR) doesn’t want the people to know that Telangana is an outcome of a people’s struggle. He wants everyone to remember it as him who achieved the Telangana dream. He wants his own domination and autocratic rule to be legitimized. He doesn’t want any other perspective which would challenge it,” he said.
He also accused the police of flouted rules by detaining activists for more than 24 hours.
“More than 3,000 activists have been detained and there are cases where a few were denied food. This is unconstitutional,” he added.