Vishakhapatanam: Tension prevailed for some time in disputed Kothia villages close to Salur in Vizianagaram district where the Odisha police sealed the border putting up barricades to prevent Salur MLA Peedka Rajanna Dora from laying foundation stones to some development works and putting up sign boards in Telugu.
Rajanna Dora and Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) project officer Kurmanath, accompanied by some officials, proposed to lay the foundation for a community hall at a cost of Rs 1 crore, distribute land pattas under Forest Rights Act to some people in the disputed villages and fix sign boards in the villages.
Recently, the MLA announced the programme following which the Odisha leaders decided to prevent him from attending the same. Odisha leaders and their followers also raised slogans against the MLA asking him to go back. On August 7, the same Odisha leaders announced that they would attack if Andhra Pradesh leaders or officials entered the disputed villages.
“The SP, collector and intelligence SP advised me not to attend the programme at the disputed villages. I stopped on their advice but now it is the responsibility of these officials to carry out the welfare work in those disputed villages,” Rajanna Dora told this correspondent on Monday afternoon.
He said the Supreme Court, way back in 1968, ordered status quo declaring them as disputed villages. “The AP officials should take it to the notice of the apex court on the violations of the Odisha government,” he said.
Sources at the border said after learning that the Salur MLA cancelled his trip, the police and political activists from Odisha dispersed from the villages. They said Vizianagaram officials held talks with their Odisha counterparts on Sunday and decided to diffuse the situation. Accordingly, they asked the MLA and officials to cancel their trip.
