StatesAndhra Pradesh
Andhra local body nominations open with violence in Punganur and Rayachoti
SUVs were overturned when YSRCP MP Midhun Reddy's convoy reached a nomination centre, and cars were set alight in Rayachoti. The TDP and YSRCP blame each other, and police dispute the MP's account.
Key points
- Clashes broke out in Punganur and Rayachoti in Annamayya district on the first day of nominations.
- The YSRCP says TDP workers attacked Rajampet MP P V Midhun Reddy's convoy; police say it was not an attack on him.
- TDP state president Palla Srinivasa Rao said such high-handedness would not be tolerated.
The first day of nominations for Andhra Pradesh’s local body elections turned violent on Friday, with vehicles overturned and set on fire in two towns of Annamayya district as the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the opposition YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) accused each other of starting it.
The worst trouble was in Punganur, where Rajampet MP P V Midhun Reddy, the YSRCP’s floor leader in the Lok Sabha, arrived to accompany his party’s candidates for the posts of municipal chairperson and ward councillors. Visuals from the town showed four SUVs flipped over with their windows smashed and a few cars burnt.
Two versions of Punganur
The YSRCP said in a statement that TDP workers blocked the convoy, kept candidates from reaching the nomination centre and attacked the vehicles with stones, sticks and iron rods while police looked on. It said a security guard travelling with Reddy suffered a gash to the head. The MP himself was reported to have been hurt and was taken by police into a room at the nomination centre after TDP workers forced their way in.
The police tell it differently. Madanapalle Deputy Superintendent of Police B Prasad said Reddy arrived with a convoy of more than 10 vehicles, mostly SUVs, and caused a disturbance before the process began. “It was not an attack on the MP (Reddy),” he said. Several people, police personnel among them, were injured.
The TDP turned the charge around. “In Punganur, MP Mithun Reddy and his followers attacked TDP leader Madhu Royal,” the party said on X, adding that the “thugs” in the convoy appeared to be drunk. Madhu Royal, the TDP’s town president, was among those reported injured.
Reddy’s father, former minister Peddireddy Ramachandra Reddy, held the government responsible for his son’s safety.
Fires in Rayachoti
In Rayachoti, cars parked near the YSRCP office were set on fire after the clash in Punganur. Supporters of the two parties were reported to have fought with stones and sticks in the town’s SN Colony, where a police vehicle was damaged and a constable hurt.
Tempers also flared in Tirupati, where TDP leaders alleged that nomination papers of their women candidates were snatched, and in Dharmavaram, where police broke up an argument between BJP and YSRCP workers near the municipal office.
What the parties want
TDP state president Palla Srinivasa Rao said the high-handedness of Reddy and his associates “would not be tolerated” and that those responsible “must be dealt with in accordance with the law”.
The YSRCP has asked the State Election Commission to step in, register criminal cases, arrest those responsible, act against officers who failed to stop the violence, and protect its candidates and their proposers so they can file papers safely. No arrests had been reported by Friday evening.
The polls cover more than 100 urban and rural local bodies. They come after the Andhra Pradesh High Court struck down the state’s backward classes quota for local bodies earlier this month and ordered elections within six weeks.