Naidu protests, sits on road, climbs atop bus, lashes out at Jagan and police  

Tirupati: Tense situation resurfaced on the last day of the Telugu Desam president Nara Chandrababu Naidu’s three-day tour of Kuppam Assembly constituency. The police thwarted his road shows and public meetings in Gudupalle of Chittoor district on Friday.

The former chief minister argued with the police as to who gave them the authority to prevent him from moving around in his own constituency. He along with other TD leaders sat on the road near the Gudupalle bus stand for some time. Later, he ascended atop a bus in his convoy and addressed his party activists.

Naidu repeatedly asked how could there be separate rules for the ruling YSRC and the opposition parties vis-à-vis staging of rallies and roadshows. Why were the YSRC leaders allowed to organise meetings in public places, he asked.

“Do the TD leaders have a separate rule? I really pity the police who have turned themselves into the role of slaves under the Jagan dispensation," Naidu said.

Alleging that Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy was behind the chaos and police “hyper-activity” in Kuppam, Naidu asserted that he and the other TD leaders were not scared of false cases and that the TD would teach a fitting lesson to those who exceeded their brief. “The days of this Chief Minister are numbered,” he said.

"You can only cause physical difficulties to me. I am willing to give up my life for the cause of the people," Naidu said.

Naidu, who claimed that hundreds of police officers had been deployed in Kuppam, asked whether the TD leaders were terrorists. “The police are resorting to attacks on TD activists and also filing cases against them. "I will no longer tolerate such behaviour. I will note down the names of those who caused obstructions to my present visit to Kuppam," Naidu warned the police.