Nagarjuna Sagar bye-poll: BJP, TRS and Cong leaders violate COVID-19 norms, booked

The Telangana police have filed cases against Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kishan Reddy, Telangana Minister G Jagadish Reddy, Congress MP A Revanth Reddy and other political leaders for allegedly violating the convoy guidelines while campaigning for the bye- election to the Nagarjuna Sagar Assembly constituency in Nalgonda district of Telangana. Cases were booked for violating the Election Commission's norms on the number of vehicles permitted in a convoy during the COVID-19 pandemic, the police said.

As per the guidelines, only five vehicles were permitted in the convoy other than the security vehicles, said a senior police official. Instead, there were more vehicles, he said. "We collected video footage and it was found that the vehicles were more in numbers, hence, we booked the cases," Nalgonda District Superintendent of Police A V Ranganath said.

The senior police official further said they registered cases against TRS candidate Nomula Bhagat and BJP candidate P Ravi Kumar Naik, too, for not abiding by the COVID-19 norms.

Also, there were several cases of violation of Model Code of Conduct (MCC) and non-adherence to the COVID-19 guidelines as the political leaders did not wear masks, the police said.

The Nagarjuna Sagar Assembly constituency bye-poll is scheduled on April 17 as it was necessitated due to the death of sitting TRS MLA Nomula Narasimhaiah.

Meanwhile, the Congress party on Wednesday wrote to the Director General of Police (DGP) seeking action against the police officers who allegedly assaulted their student leader Manavatha Roy, who belongs to a Dalit community. The party demanded that the DGP investigate the matter by charging the police officers under Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

On Tuesday night, Roy, the Congress Committee’s General Secretary, who was campaigning for Jana Reddy in Nagarjuna Sagar, was allegedly attacked by TRS leaders who barged into his hotel room. A video of the attack has been shared by the party. 

In the video, Roy is being surrounded by some men, while a person continues to slap him. A police officer instead of stopping them, continues to pull him by his hand. The Congress party said that Roy was “brutally attacked and abused in filthy language” by a police officer and other TRS activists.

“While we accept that state police have a prerogative to provide security to (Chief Minister) K Chandrasekhar Rao as a chief of a political party, but it is obnoxious and not unacceptable that police has indulged in detaining Congress cadre and deprived them from election campaign. More importantly, police barbarically beating and abusing a Dalit student leader Manavatha Roy along with TRS activists is illegal and highly unconstitutional,” the letter reads.

The Congress accused the police of “unlawfully” detaining several Congress leaders, 36 hours before the bye-poll.  “Police has detained several congress cadres in Nagarjuna Sagar, snatching away our constitutional right of election campaigning in the name of KCR’s meeting. Wonder if KCR has any special privilege to be governed by any special constitution rather than being governed by Dr BR Ambedkar’s Constitution? When KCR is being allowed to campaign, why not Manavatha Roy or any other citizen for that matter?”

Chief Minister and TRS president KCR had held a huge meeting in Halia on Wednesday, as part of the TRS’ election campaign.

With PTI Inputs