Hyderabad Police Arrests Harish Rao and Several BRS Officials

Hyderabad: Former minister Harish Rao has been arrested by the Hyderabad police for supporting the protest program held by former sarpanches of the State today. The former minister and BRS party leaders staged a protest in front of Tirumalagiri police station in Secunderabad in support of the former sarpanches.

The police immediately reached the spot and arrested Harish Rao and other leaders of the pink party and took them to the police station.

Speaking on the occasion, he said the arrests and detention of the former sarpanches was a heinous act and alleged that the sarpanches were arrested like thieves and terrorists in the middle of the night. He said “The Congress government was indulging in vendetta against sarpanches.

The sarpanches borrowed money and sold gold ornaments of their wives and children to do public works in their villages,” he said.

He alleged that the State government was pretending to be asleep when asked to pay the pending bills of the sarpanches. “Under the leadership of KCR, sarpanches have worked hard for the development of villages. Telangana has become the care of address for the best villages. The role of sarpanches was crucial in winning the Prime Minister panchayat awards. Why is Chief Minister Revanth Reddy punishing sarpanches, who has done good work,” Rao asked.

He alleged that the pending bills were being paid to big contractors and added that hundreds of crores of the pending bills were paid so far by the State government. “Should the poor sarpanches be punished for doing the public works? It has been more than 10 months since the State government came to power. Even 10 lakh bills have not been paid to the sarpanches so far. They came to Hyderabad four or five times and met Chief Minister and Panchayat Minister. The former sarpanches should be called for discussions,” he demanded.

Stating that the arrests of the sarpanches are not the solution, Harish Rao alleged that the phones of sarpanches were snatched away by the police and were taken away like the terrorists to the police stations. He claimed that neither he nor his party leaders were allowed to talk to the arrested former sarpanches.

He demanded that the pending bills of the sarpanches should be released immediately. Apart from Harish Rao, Opposition leader in State legislative council Madhusudhana Chari, former minister Prashanth Reddy, MLAs Kotha Prabhakar Reddy, Dr Sanjay and several other BRS party leaders were also arrested by the police on the occasion.