ANANTAPUR: A delegation of Congress MLAs, who were planning to visit Sarsala village, where TRS MLA Koneru Konapa’s brother Koneru Krishna attacked Forest Range Officer (FRO) Ch Anita, were arrested by police in Mancherial district headquarters on Thursday. The delegation, consisting of MLAs Jagga Reddy, Seethakka, D Sridhar Babu and MLC Jeevan Reddy, had visited the house of former MLC K Premsagar on their way to Sarsala. They were to prepare a ‘ground report’ on the incident.
However, they were detained by police and shifted to a police station in Mancherial. Congress workers tried to stop the police from arresting the MLAs, but they too were detained and taken to the police station.
Later, MLC Jeevan Reddy, interacting with the media, accused Telangana Rashtra Samithi government of sending mixed signals over the podu lands issue. “On one hand, the government is issuing pattas to tribal farmers cultivating podu lands on forest lands. On the other hand, it is asking the forest department to plant on these lands under the Haritha Haram programme. It is the government that is creating trouble between the forest department and tribals,” he said.
Reddy said many tribal farmers have been doing podu cultivation on forest lands for three decades and must be issued pattas. “The government is depriving tribals of their rights. We have evidence of the dictator-like nature of this government. We are visiting villages in the region to know more and get to the bottom of the issue,” he said.