TDP workers block Amit Shah’s convoy

​Tirupati: BJP president Amit Shah’s visit to Tirumala witnessed a high drama with TDP activists making an abortive bid to attack his convoy of vehicles at Alipiri here when he was returning from Tirumala after a Darshan of Lord Venkateswara on Friday.

In Amaravati, Home Minister N Chinarajappa denied that there was any attack on the BJP president and said he was nonetheless ordering an inquiry.

In Tirupati, TDP activists led by city president Dampuri Bhaskar Yadav gathered at Alipiri, near the ghat road, protesting BJP president’s visit, for denying special category status (SCS) to the state.

Yadav along with Telugu Yuvatha district president Sridhar Varma, local leader Sanjay, their followers and party activists assembled at Alipiri after announcing to block Amit Shah and his entourage to register Telugus’ protest against the BJP for betraying Andhra Pradesh on the SCS issue.

This alerted the police including three DSPs of Alipiri, East PS and SB, who posted policemen in full strength at the foot of the Hills.

The TDP leaders and activists, about a hundred, holding placards in support of the SCS and against Modi and the BJP lined up on both sides of the road, near Garuda statue while the police with a rope line ready to prevent them from coming on to the road.

The activists went on raising slogans against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP and shouted ‘Amit Shaw go back’ adding tempo to the protest keeping the police on tenterhooks.

The police formed into a human wall and kept the protestors at bay but the activists suddenly sprang into action when they spotted Amit Shah’s convoy fast approaching and tried to break the police cordon. 

Four to five vehicles, including the one in which the BJP president was in, sped past but the remaining were stranded with the agitators blocking them, after breaking the cordon and barging on to the road.

The police relaxed the cordon immediately after Amit Shah’s vehicle passed away, opening the flood gate allowing the TDP activists coming on to the road forcing the remaining vehicles numbering about eight coming to a halt. 

The TDP activists shouting slogans surrounded the vehicles while some banged them and while others hit them with the flag posts they were holding, damaging the car in which BJP leader Kola Anand was sitting.

Anand and others in the cars that were halted got down and sought the activists to clear off but in vain. Meanwhile, the police promptly intervened and brought the situation under control. Some of the TDP activists sustained minor injuries in the jostling that followed when the police tried to clear them from the road to allow the remaining vehicles of Amit Shah’s convoy.

The BJP leaders flayed the police for the attack on their leader’s convoy and accused them of being soft with the TDP activists allowing them to stay at the high security Alipiri area for about two hours instead of clearing them from that place.

BJP district president B Chandra Reddy along with state spokesperson G Bhanuprakash Reddy met SP Abhishek Mohanti and filed a complaint on the incident.

In the complaint, the BJP leaders questioned the police allowing the TDP leaders and activists stand on the roadside, which is clearly a breach of security as the BJP national president having Z plus category security and stated that both the TTD security and vigilance and the local police failed in ensuring security as per norms to the visiting national leader.

Later, addressing the media, they demanded action on the police responsible for the attack on the vehicle in Amit Shah’s convoy and an enquiry into the incident.