Sharmila prevented from going to Gajwel, put under house arrest
The police told her that local Bharat Rashtra Samithi workers were protesting in Gajwel opposing her visit; and that her visit may “cause law and order problems”.
YSR Telangana Party president Y S Sharmila was on Friday kept under house-arrest and prevented from going to Gajwel, the home constituency of Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, people familiar with the matter said.
Sharmila was going to the town to allegedly look into the complaints of alleged irregularities in the implementation of Dalit Bandhu scheme. After Sharmila came out of her Lotus Pond residence in Banjara Hills, the police officials from Banjara Hills police station deployed there told her that she could not go to Gajwel.
They told her that local Bharat Rashtra Samithi workers were protesting in Gajwel opposing her visit; and that her visit may “cause law and order problems”.
Sharmila argued with the police and insisted that she had received a representation from Dalit families of Teegul village of Jagdevpur block about the large scale irregularities in the distribution of financial assistance under the scheme. But the police refused to allow the travel and said she would have to “confine herself to her house” and should not come out.
As a mark of protest, Sharmila offered “aarti” to the women cops who surrounded her and said “she will pray... to give better wisdom to the cops, so that they won’t work as an extended outfit of the BRS”.
Slamming the state government for “keeping her under house arrest”, Sharmila said it was “shameful on the part of chief minister Rao for continuing to target her”. “When the police can permit the BRS workers to stage a dharna and threaten me against visiting Gajwel, why are they stopping me from going there?” she asked. She said the police should do their duty sincerely and adhere to the Constitution of India and not that of KCR. “The chief minister is clearly rattled and is losing his position. He is scared that my visit will expose his misdeeds,” she alleged.
Later, Sharmila, along with her party colleagues, sat on a day-long dharna in front of her residence and raised slogans against the state and the police.
