In a shocking incident in Telangana angry villagers and farmers today attacked and chased district magistrate Prateek Jain and other officials with stones and sticks at Lagacharla village of Dudyala mandal of Vikarabad district when they tried to conduct a public hearing on the acquisition of land for a pharmaceutical company. Since Dudyala comes under Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy’s constituency Kodangal the incident caused a major embarrassment to the Congress government. A large police force was deployed in the area to bring the situation under control. The BRS was quick to blame the CM for the attack, criticising him for cancelling the pharma city project for which the land was already available and instead going for pharma clusters for which land is being acquired in new areas.

Attacked, DM, TelanganaAccompanied by additional collector and sub collector ,they tried to hold a public hearing when the farmers who were protesting nearby turned violent and accosted them. Video footage showed Jain being pushed around by the angry villagers but managed to enter his vehicle and get away as his staff intervened. But angry villagers chased the vehicles, pelted stones and damaged at least three vehicles. Slogans of “CM down, down” were also raised by the protestors. There had been simmering public anger as villagers were opposed to the unit due to environmental concerns as well as resentment over the government’s move to acquire their agricultural land.

The BRS blamed the CM’s policy of cancelling the pharma city project conceived during the previous regime and instead set up pharma clusters across the state. The party said Revanth Reddy has failed spectacularly on both counts. KT Rama Rao, BRS working president cited the incident as “The latest example of the failure of administration and law and order in the state where the farmers turned against the district collector in Kodangal, Revanth Reddy’s own constituency. It is unfortunate that the officials have to suffer because of the stupidity of the chief minister. In fact, it is Revanth Reddy’s greed and lack of understanding which caused this predicament.” He said that even after the land acquisition was completed, all the permissions were received and the Pharma City was ready to start the chief minister decided to sell the land acquired for pharma city and planned to start 10 pharma clusters instead. Referring to Reddy as modern day Tughlaq he added that now the chief minister was plotting to grab the land in Kodangal.