Chandrababu Naidu decries midnight arrest of party leaders

Mangalagiri: Condemning midnight arrests, TDP national president N Chandrababu Naidu on Wednesday urged the State Election Commissioner (SEC) and the DGP to take immediate steps for the unconditional release of TDP leaders N Amaranatha Reddy and Pulivarthi Nani.

Naidu said the police filed a false case and then arrested TDP former minister Amaranatha Reddy and Tirupati parliament TDP in-charge Pulivarthi Venkata Mani Prasad (Nani). These midnight arrests were made at the behest of the ruling YSRCP leaders who were aiming at preventing the TDP leaders from the election campaign.

In separate letters sent to the SEC and the DGP here, the TDP chief said that the present elections to 13 Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) have turned into a farce and a black mark on democracy in Andhra Pradesh.

He said it seemed the police functioning in the state have been progressively deteriorating under the present leadership. Not only did the police file a fake case against TDP leaders campaigning in Kuppam, but had the audacity to arrest two senior leaders of TDP from their hotel rooms during midnight hours.

He said that the police registered false cases against Amaranatha and Nani on November 8 itself. Instead of arresting them during daytime, the police chose midnight hours in order to send wrong signals to the opposition leaders. Naidu said that initially, it was local election authorities who had either illegally rejected nominations of TDP candidates or had withdrawn their nominations through forged signatures. Now, it is the police who were conniving with the ruling YSRCP to file false complaints to facilitate midnight arrests in order to prevent TDP leaders from campaigning.

The TDP chief demanded that stringent action should be taken against the erring officers who were responsible

for midnight arrests

and for filing fabricated cases to subvert the election process.