Jangaon people, who have been demanding carving out a new Jangaon district in Telangana, observed a town bandh for the second day today amid tension and a huge deployment of the police.
Following the violence that erupted yesterday in which an RTC bus was burnt, police imposed Section 144 in the town to prevent a recurrence of violence. Many leaders of the Joint Action Committee (JAC), which has given the call for the bandh, have been rounded up by the police and the remaining have gone underground to evade arrest.
Though some buses were plied with a police escort, they had been stopped in the villages, said Magalampalli Raju, convenor the JAC.
Speaking to Asianet Newsable, Raju said the movement would continue till the government announces the creation of new Jangaon district. Bandh was complete today, he said.
The reason behind the people’s ire against the government are the family interests of chief minister KCR, the JAC leaders alleged.
According to Dr Dashmanth Reddy, president of the JAC, Jangaon is being made a scapegoat to benefit IT minister K T Ramarao, son of chief minister KCR, and Irrigation minister T Harish Rao, the CM’s nephew.
According to the new districts proposal announced by KCR, his son’s constituency Sircilla and his nephew’s constituency Siddipet have been proposed as new districts.
“Sircilla is a only a gram panchayat. Since it is the CM’s son’s constituency, it might become a new district on that qualification. At the same time, the nephew, who is seen as the son’s rival for KCR's political inheritance, should not be ignored. But Siddipet requires a few more mandals to become eligible to be a district. So, they (the government) has decided to transfer two important Jangoan mandals, Cheryal and Maddur, to the proposed district in Siddept,” says Reddy, who has a doctorate in political science.
"Cheryala is very important for revenues in Jangoan due to the presence of the Tupaspalli project and the famous Komarelli temple. If these two are gone, nevermind status as a district, Jangoan loses its significance altogether,” he added.
Jangaon, Dr Reddy says, has been a municipality since 1953 while KTR’s Siricilla is just a gram panchayat. “Jangoan division has 11 mandals and Sircilla nine. The Jangaon town, with a population of 60,000, has three degree colleges, a big railway station and two national highways passing through the town. The government is defeating Jangaon to promote the chief minister’s son and nephew,” he alleged, stating that the anger of the people was visible yesterday when the entire town had participated in the bandh.
“People are with us. Even though the local MLA M Yadireddy and Municipal council is against the bandh, people have observed bandh voluntarily. To foil the bandh, police invoked Section 144, but they could not succeed in getting the shops opened on the second day,” Raju said.
Yesterday hundreds of youth tried to attack the residence of Jangaon TRS MLA Yadireddy, as he was seen as the villain in the fight for the new district.
According to Kodem Kumar, another activist of JAC, the people of Jangaon had been cheated by many TRS leaders.
“Jangoan MLA M Yadireddy is not with the people as he is a non-local. The influential Mahabubad MP, Ramachandra Naik, got his town included in proposed list of districts. People are angry that Jangaon has been removed from the list of new districts, even though it had figured in the first list. When Jangoan was announced as the possible new district, people here performed a milk bath to the portrait of chief minister KCR. Now, they have turned hostile due to the injustice being done to the district,” said Kumar, who is also the president of Warangal district's Intellectual’s forum.
