Tension prevailed in Bapatla district as some unidentified miscreants damaged the life-size statue of late N.T. Rama Rao, the founder of Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and former Chief Minister of United Andhra Pradesh in the early hours of Thursday (December 7) at Bhartipudi village in Bapatla mandal and district.
When the entire public is already in a panic-like situation in the district due to cyclone Michaung impact and spent restless nights for the last couple of days, this sudden development of vandalising the NTR statue became an issue of concern for the TDP fans.
The local TDP leaders and supporters started staging protests in front of the vandalised NTR’s statue there. Alleging that the statue was vandalised by the ruling YSR Congress Party leaders, Bapatla TDP in-charge Narendra Varma demanded the State government to punish the culprits by booking criminal cases against them. He also joined in the protest at the village. He alleged that it was nothing but provocative politics to hurt the entire TDP followers and NTR fans across the State.
Meanwhile, the TDP national president Nara Chandrababu Naidu condemned the vandalisation of NTR Statue at Bhartipudi village. He alleged that it was a shameful act of the miscreants who damaged the statue in the midnight, when all the people were sleeping. He termed it as a cowardly act of YSRCP leaders, stating that it was nothing but insulting the great leader, NTR. He demanded the police to book criminal cases on the accused persons and send them to the prison without any delay.
On the other hand, TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh alleged that due to the fear of defeat the YSRCP in the ensuing general elections, scheduled just a few months later, the Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and his government has been resorting to these kind of provocative activities. He said that the YSRCP leaders could not remove the place of NTR from the hearts of the people through these kinds of cowardly acts and warned that he would ensure the statue would be reinstalled at the same place by the same people who resorted to damage it.
