The Hindu : BJP men go berserk over seat-sharing

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Mar 26, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

BJP men go berserk over seat-sharing

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, MARCH 25. The protests in the BJP over seat-sharing with the TDP took a violent turn today with irate activists from the Malakpet Assembly constituency ransacking furniture and breaking glass panes at the State BJP office while another group of workers staged a noisy dharna at its main entrance demanding that the Mahabubnagar Lok Sabha seat be retained.

Even as the State Election Committee was in a meeting, scores of activists from the Malakpet constituency, raising slogans such as "We want Malakpet" trooped into the party office, grabbed chairs near the reception desk and smashed the glass panes of partitions and doors.

The Malakpet seat, represented by the BJP in the dissolved House, was given to the TDP in exchange for Himayatnagar in the city in the seat-sharing exercise between the two parties.

This was immediately followed by a boisterous sit-in by activists from Gadwal and Wanaparthy in protest against the party's decision to surrender the Mahabubnagar Lok Sabha seat, won by A. P. Jitender Reddy in the last elections, to the TDP in exchange for the Tirupati (SC) seat. As the protest continued one of the workers took out a knife and slashed his arm while others threatened to launch an indefinite hunger strike till their demand was met.

The workers ghearoed the Union Minister of State for Urban Development, Bandaru Dattatreya, when he arrived at the party office. The angry activists, led by the former Mahabubnagar district BJP president, G.Rajendra Reddy, demanded that the party surrender the Medak Lok Sabha seat and retain Mahabubnagar even as Mr. Dattatreya sought to pacify them.

At a press conference, the BJP State president, N. Indrasena Reddy, and Mr. Dattatreya denounced the violence and announced the "suo motu suspension" of two workers — Sudershan Reddy and Prabhabakar Reddy — and warned the cadres that indiscipline would not be tolerated. They said that action would be taken against others also. They ruled out the question of reconsidering the decision to exchange the Mahabubnagar seat saying that it was swapped because the party wanted to have representation in the Rayalaseema region.

They maintained that the swapping of the seats was based on the winning chances of the parties.

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Andhra Pradesh