The police on Wednesday took into custody three main accused in connection with the attack on TDP leaders former MLA Bonda Umameshwara Rao and MLC Buddha Venkanna and a High Court advocate P Kishore at Macherla in Guntur on Wednesday. In the attack, Buddha Venkkanna received minor injuries while the High Court advocate had suffered injuries to
his head.
The arrests followed a protest sit-in outside the DGP (Director General of Police) Gautam Sawang’s office on Wednesday by TDP president and former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu along with Bonda Umameshwara Rao and Buddha Venkanna and other TDP leaders demanding that the accused be arrested.
The incident occurred at Macherla ring road in Guntur on Wednesday morning. The attackers tried to stop the black Audi car in which the two TDP leaders were travelling and smashed the window panes of the car with sticks. The two TDP leaders were on their way to attend a meeting to discuss about filing of nomination for the MPTC and ZPTC elections. Speaking to mediapersons, Bonda Uma and Buddha Venkanna claimed that they were on their way to the police station to file a complaint on alleged obstructions faced by TDP candidates while trying to file their nomination on Tuesday for the upcoming local body polls in the state.
Bonda Uma and Buddha Venkanna at the conference claimed that it was a pre-planned attack by the YSRCP workers with an intention to kill them. The TDP leaders said around 30 YSRCP activists attacked the car with sticks and rods as soon as they had entered Macherla. The YSRCP workers, according to the TDP leaders, chased them in motorbikes and SUVs. Even the gunman was attacked when he had tried to protect the TDP leaders.
Soon after the incident, Buddha Venkanna apprised TDP president Chandrababu Naidu and former Andhra Pradesh chief minister about the incident over the phone. Addressing the media after the incident, Chandrababu Naidu alleged that YSRCP supporters from the region had carried out the attack. Reacting sharply to the incident, Naidu condemned the attack saying such incidents were not isolated cases but a common refrain across parts of Andhra Pradesh, especially in Rayalaseema where TDP leaders and activists have been under constant attack by the YSRCP leaders and their followers. “Violence and physical attack have become YSRCP’s culture, but we will get more determined to raise people’s voice after every attack. CM and DGP have to give an explanation to the incident. They wanted to kill Bonda Uma and Buddha Venkanna. Such incidents have not happened even in Kashmir or Bihar,” Naidu rued.
However, YSRCP Macherla sitting MLA and party whip Pennelli Ramakrisha Reddy denied the role of party activists. He said, as a matter of fact, former Bonda Umamaheswara and Buddha Venkanna along with a cavalcade of 10 vehicles were travelling from Vijayawada to Macherla to unleash unrest in Palanadu ahead of MPTC and ZPTC elections. At Macherla, one of the vehicles was involved in an accident injuring a minor boy and enraged locals attacked the TDP leaders.
In another press conference, YSRCP senior leader Botsa Satyanarayana rubbished the TDP allegations that YSRCP workers were behind the incident. It was in fact orchestrated by TDP president Chandrababu Naidu to trigger unrest ahead of civic body polls, he alleged.
