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The Friday evening’s violence at Macherla town in Palnadu district, in which the YSR Congress party cadre and Telugu Desam Party workers indulged in attacks and counter-attacks might prove costly for YSRC president Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy in the next assembly elections.
Without going into the details as to who provoked the violence in Macherla and who is at fault in the whole episode, the incident has definitely a bad remark for the Jagan government, as the message that there is an utter lawlessness in the state has already gone into the people.
The incident has put the YSRC leaders on the defensive. Though they tried to turn the tables on the TDP by alleging that it was TDP leader Julakanti Brahma Reddy with a faction background, who instigated the violence, the blame certainly goes to the ruling party which has the responsibility to prevent such incidents.
What is more ridiculous is the way the Palnadu district police sought to cover up their failure by describing it as a factional violence.
It was an openly known to everybody that the violence erupted over the conduct of “Idem Kharma” programme of the TDP in front of Macherla municipality, Palnadu superintendent of police Y Ravi Sankar Reddy says the incident had nothing to do with politics.
He says the police had conducted cordon and search operations in Macherla on Friday morning on the information that certain faction leaders entered the town.
But one fails to understand what the police had achieved with such operation and why they could take the potential trouble makers, if any, into custody well in advance.
The TDP leaders would have taken police permission to hold the programme. If the police knew that there are faction leaders in the town, they should not have given the permission to the TDP rally in the first place.
Even if they had given, they should have provided tight bandobust to prevent any violence and retaliation, knowing fully well that there are faction leaders in the rally.
“It appears the police have deliberately remained silent spectators when the YSRC leaders were resorting to attacks and arson and the TDP workers were retaliating,” an observer said.
Naturally, the TDP has fully exploited the situation to project to the rest of the world that there is no freedom to the opposition parties to register their protests on public issues and that there is a total collapse of law and order in the state.
If such incidents continue to happen and the police remain mute witnesses, it will only prove counterproductive to the YSRC in general and Jagan in particular!
