ANANTAPUR: The bickering in the Hindupur Assembly constituency unit of the Telugu Desam Party had come out into the open with the resignation of two of its leaders and the police imposing Section 144 in Chilamathur village and across the Hindupur Assembly constituency, represented by cine hero Nandamuri Balakrishna, on Sunday to prevent clashes between opposing groups.
Two ZPTC members from Lepakshi and Chilamathur had submitted their resignations to the ZP Chairman. At a press meet, they said the reason behind their resignation was the dictatorial attitude of Sekhar, personal assistant (PA) of Mr. Balakrishna.
“Mr. Sekhar doesn’t extend even minimum courtesy to anyone from the party misusing the name of Mr. Balakrishna. This cannot be allowed if the party is to serve the people and reassert its position in the next elections,” said ZPTC member Adinarayana Reddy.
Meanwhile, senior TDP leader Ambica Lakshminarayana also supported the demand that Mr. Sekhar be sent away from the constituency to restore normalcy in the party. A majority of the cadre and leaders in the constituency had decided to hold a meeting at Chilamathur while the supporters of Mr. Sekhar including Hanock, an MPTC, said they would prevent such a meeting.
The police prevented the TDP cadre and leaders from entering the Chilamathur town to ward off trouble.
“We have met near Bagepalli [the adjoining town in Karnataka] town and have decided to extend a timeline of one week for Mr. Sekhar to be taken off duty failing which we shall sit in protest near the NTR statue in Hindupur,” Mr. Adinarayana Reddy told The Hindu .
The ruckus is being seen as a culmination of a series of secret and of late open meetings of several TDP leaders from the constituency over the past week to discuss the attitude of Mr. Sekhar and the alleged intransigence of Mr. Balakrishna in even considering any move against him.
On the other hand, an audio surfaced on the social media on Saturday, showing purportedly Mr. Sekhar shouting at an unidentified contractor from Anantapur over bidding for contracts in the Hindupur municipality without his blessings.
