The police, charging her with making incendiary comments about BRS MLA Shankar Naik, took her away to Hyderabad.
YS Sharmila escorted by police after being arrested from Mahabubabad. (Screengrab)
The police in the Mahabubabad district of Telangana arrested YSRTP president YS Sharmila on Sunday, 19 February, while she was on her Praja Prasthanam padayatra and sent her back to Hyderabad.
The police, charging her with making incendiary comments about BRS MLA Shankar Naik, took her away even as the supporters accompanying her resisted the cops.
After Sharmila made serious allegations against Shankar Naik for calling her a settler on Saturday, his supporters arrived in large numbers at Bathalu in the Mahabubabad district on Sunday morning and began raising slogans against her.
Meanwhile, the MLA and his wife Sita Mahalakshmi staged a “rasta roko” with their supporters on the National Highway 365 at Bhajana Thanda while their supporters went on the rampage, setting fire to Sharmila’s flexboards.
As the situation was getting out of control, the police asked her to get down from her bus where she was resting but she did oblige them.
They tried to make her see reason in winding up her yatra as it was creating a law-and-order problem, but she refused to budge.
The police then decided to drive the bus along with her back to Hyderabad. Sharmila then got down from the police after which they arrested her.
The immediate provocation for the BRS activists to stage protests came from her provocative comments on the MLA Shankar Naik who she said was resorting to the encroachment of lands.
She said no one had the right to call another a settler, and wanted him to keep in mind that his wife too was a settler.
As the MLA is from a Scheduled Tribe, his supporters lodged a police complaint under the SC and ST Atrocities (Prevention) Act against her.
This was the second time that the police had disrupted her padayatra and sent her back to Hyderabad.
They arrested her earlier when she made similar inflammatory comments on local BRS leaders in Warangal. They later sent her back to Hyderabad.
The YSRTP leader then went to the Telangana High Court and obtained orders facilitating the continuation of her padayatra with the caveat that the permission given to her was subject to complying with the conditions laid out by the police.
The YSRTP president then resumed her padayatra on 28 January. It was to end on 5 March in the Paleru Assembly segment from where she intends to contest for the Assembly in the next Assembly elections.
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