ELURU: Senior Telugu Desam Party leader Kotagiri Vidyadhara Rao on Tuesday hit the road on Tuesday by leading a road blockade programme on the Eluru-Jangareddygudem State Highway at Borrampalem crossroad against the alleged irregularities in preparation of voter lists in his Chintalapudi Assembly constituency in West Godavari district.

Mr Rao, who held a sway over the constituency for over two decades consecutively, organised the road show for the first time after his defeat in the last general elections.

The party functionaries held up traffic on the highway by placing tractors across the road in a bid to highlight the `official bias' in favour of the ruling Congress in preparing the voter lists. The protest went on for well over four hours from noon on the highway. A large number of party workers from T. Narsapuram, Lingapalem and Kamavarapukota mandals took part in the protest.

Mr Vidyadhara Rao accused the Congress Government of trying to turn the Panchayat Raj elections into a farce by eliminating the TDP sympathisers from voter lists with the help of the official machinery.

Recalling that the State election itself had admitted `serious lapses' committed by the official machinery in preparing voter lists in Kamavarapukota mandal, he lambasted the Collector for his `laxity' in initiating action against the officials responsible for the `goof-up.'

`Names deleted'

Mr Vidyadhara Rao said over 1,000 `eligible' voters were deleted from the lists in 11 gram panchayats in T. Narsapur mandal alone.

In Velagapadu falling under the same mandal, 314 out of the total of 2,600 votes were deleted, he charged.

He said they lost their right to exercise their franchise in spite of their names figuring in the final lists.

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