The demand for making Penukonda the headquarters of the newly notified Sri Sathya Sai district instead of Puttaparthi grew louder as the members of Penukonda Paryataka Porata Committee took out a massive vehicle rally from Penukonda to Anantapur on Thursday.
“Penukonda was the second capital of the Vijayanagara kingdom during Sri Krishnadevaraya’s rule and there is a dilapidated palace on the hillock in Penukonda and several edifices that remind of Krishnadeveraya,” said committee president Pratap Reddy, who led a team of non-political residents of the region to submit a memorandum to District Collector Nagalakshmi Selvarajan on Thursday afternoon. Police allowed only a limited number of members of the committee to take out a rally in Anantapur and enter the Collector’s office.