For the first time, YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy got his sister and Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president Y S Sharmila arrested on Thursday.
Though Jagan might not have told them directly, the Vijayawada police arrested her while she was leading a march of the party leaders and workers to the secretariat to register her protest against the failure of the state government in filling up 23,000-odd vacancies of teachers in various government schools in the state.
As Sharmila was marching towards secretariat, the police took her into custody at Undavalli and bundled into the police vans along with hundreds of party leaders including former PCC chief Gidugu Rudra Raju. She suffered minor bruises on her hands, while she was being pushed into the van.
The arrested leaders were taken to Mangalagiri police station and released later in the evening after they were served a notice under Section 151 of Criminal Procedure Code.
Sharmila gave the Chalo Secertariat call to the party leaders and cadre on Thursday, but the Vijayawada police refused to give permission for the same and kept several Congress leaders under house arrest on Wednesday evening itself.
On Thursday morning, the police surrounded the Andhra Ratna Bhavan and detained Sharmila within the premises. Thousands of the party workers who gathered there raised slogans against the government.
Addressing the gathering, Sharmila said it was atrocious on the part of the Jagan government to prevent her and her party leaders from going to the secretariat to submit a memorandum on filling up of job vacancies.
“During the last assembly elections, Jagan had promised to fill up 23,000 vacant teacher posts by through District Selection Committees (DSC). But now, days before the 2024 elections, he issued a notification to fill up just 6,000 posts to hoodwink the unemployed,” she criticised.
Calling her brother Jagan as a dictator, Sharmila alleged that whoever was protesting against his government’s misdeeds were being put under house arrest.
“We are virtually being held hostage by the police, who put up iron barricades and barbed wire fencings. Jagan is a dictator and he wants to stop the protestors,” she said.
She said it was unfortunate that the Jagan government did not spare even a woman leader like her.
“But I am former chief minister Dr Y S Rajashekara Reddy’s daughter, and I cannot be deterred by arrests. I shall continue my fight,” she said.
