It is now the turn of YSR Congress Party leader Jagan Mohan Reddy to be at the receiving end of the threats by TRS and its associate outfits. TRS and even Congress leaders have declared that the scheduled visit of Jagan to Nizamabad on Tuesday would not be allowed.
TRS leader Harish Rao said that Jagan was anti-Telangana and hence his party would oppose his Odarpu Yatra in the region. Congress MP Vivek also asked Jagan not to enter Telangana after what he had done in Parliament. Prof Kodandaram, the JAC leader, called upon various Telangana organizations to stiffly oppose Jagan’s entry by organizing protests and demonstrations against the YSR Congress chief.
How serious is TRS over its stated opposition to Jagan’s trip is not very clear. According to some party leaders, the stand was necessitated to debunk TDP’s allegation that the pink party was in collusion with YSR Congress Party. There is also the fear that slowly the other non-Congress parties are making inroads into the region, which TRS would naturally want to keep as its fiefdom.
In any case, the TDP would have to come out openly to protest any attempts to stop Jagan’s tour, if it really believes in freedom of speech that the party talked about so much recently. It will also be interesting to see whether the Kiran Kumar Reddy government would offer the same kind of protective ring to Jagan, as it did for Chandrababu Naidu.
