The Hindu : Front Page : OMC row: dharna at Rosaiah’s office

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Friday, Nov 13, 2009
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OMC row: dharna at Rosaiah’s office

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: Thirty nine legislators and one MP of Telugu Desam were arrested when they staged a dharna in front of the Chief Minister’s Office block inside the Secretariat on Thursday.

They were demanding suspension of V.D. Rajagopal, Director, Mines & Geology and C. Sivasankar Reddy, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, and stoppage of “looting of mines” by Obulapuram Mining Company (OMC).

They were arrested under section 151 of Cr PC and taken to Gandhi Nagar police station and released later.

The dharna began amidst a high voltage drama and witnessed by large number of employees.

The elected representatives, led by Nagam Janardhan Reddy, reached the “C” block in a rally and tried to rush to the elevators at its entrance to meet Chief Minister K. Rosaiah on the sixth floor.

They abruptly sat in a dharna as the police, who reached the spot in sizeable number by then, prevented them from entering the building.

After consulting the CMO, P. Hari Kumar, DCP (Central), urged the slogan shouting legislators to end the ‘dharna’, but it continued for one-and-a-half hours from 12 noon.

He told them that the Chief Minister had offered to meet a delegation of MLAs, but they insisted that all of them be allowed or otherwise Mr. Rosaiah must come down to hear them.

With Chief Minister rejecting their demand, the police moved all of them into vans. Speaking to reporters, Dr. Reddy alleged that Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, son of former Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy was behind all OMC activities.

The OMC mining scandal involved a whopping sum of over Rs. 1 lakh crore but the guilty officials were left scot-free.

Earlier, party president, N. Chandrababu Naidu held a meeting with the legislators and decided to intensify the agitation till the government stops the illegal mining by OMC.

He asked them to gear up for a long-drawn agitation as the OMC has now been caught ‘red-handed’.

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