The Andhra Pradesh Congress chief YS Sharmila was detained along with several other Congress members by the police in Vijayawada on Thursday, February 22.
Tension prevailed at the Congress party’s office as the police prevented the sister of CM Jagan Mohan Reddy from leading the ‘Chalo Secretariat’ protest.
In a fresh post on Thursday, Sharmila said “Thousands of policemen were placed around us. Iron fences have been put up and we have been held hostage. If we stand on the side of the unemployed, they are arresting us. You are dictators who are trying to stop us. Your actions are proof of this. YCP Sarkar should apologize to the unemployed.”
On Wednesday, she had given a protest call to address the state government’s apathy towards unemployed youth.
She said the government had promised to fill 23,000 posts of teachers but issued DSC notification only for 6,000 posts. She demanded that the YSRCP Government apologise to the unemployed.
Congress leaders held by collar
Congress leaders Mastan Wali and Rudra Raju have also been detained by the police. Meanwhile, the Congress has raised strong objections to how the two leaders were handled by the police and asked if there was no democracy in the state.
Wali tried to pull down the police barricade, leading to heated arguments and fisticuffs between the two sides. Some police personnel held Mastan Vali by his collar and physically lifted him into a police vehicle.
Police also placed under house arrest Congress leaders in Vijayawada, Guntur and other places to foil the march.
Sharmila spends night at party office
Sharmila, the previous day, had spent the night in her party office in an attempt to avoid house arrest by the state government.
Taking to her account on X she wrote, “If we call for protest on behalf of the unemployed, will you try to keep us under house arrest? Don’t we have the right to protest in a democracy? Is it not shameful that as a woman I have been forced to evade the police and spend the night in the Congress Party office to avoid house arrest?”
Further lashing at the state government, she said, “Are we terrorists…or anti-social forces? They are trying to stop us… It means they (the government) are afraid of us. They are trying to hide their incompetence, the real truth. Even if they try to stop us, stop our workers, our struggle on behalf of the unemployed will not stop.
Before becoming the Andhra Pradesh Congress party chief, Sharmila campaigned for her brother and now CM Jagan Mohan Reddy. However, after a fallout, she floated her party on July 8, 2021, called the YSR Telangana Party.
On January 4 this year, Sharmila announced merging her party with the Indian National Congress and soon was elevated to the party’s state chief.
(With inputs from IANS)
