Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) president YS Sharmila was arrested on Thursday by police along with several other party leaders while leading a protest march in support of the unemployed youths to the state Secretariat at Vijayawada.
Sharmila had spent the night in the party office, Andhra Ratna Bhavan in Vijayawada to avoid being put under house arrest. She later lashed out at her brother and Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy calling him a dictator.
The police stopped her march at Tadepalli near Karrakatta on the grounds that they had not given permission for the march and finally arrested her after a long standoff. She reportedly suffered slight injury while women constables physically lifted and carried her off before putting her inside the vehicle to take her to the police station.
“Democracy has been murdered under the Special Constitution of Jagan’s (YS Jagan Mohan Reddy) party. You will be arrested and detained if you question unfulfilled promises. If this is the case for me as the president of the Congress party then what is the condition of the common man? Are we in a democratic country? Or are we under a monarchy? It is sad that the police illegally arrested Congress party leaders and workers, including myself, who were going to give a representation to the government,” said Sharmila after her arrest.
She went on to add that there was no one in the Secretariat to take the petition. ”The Chief Minister does not come, the ministers do not come, officers do not come. It is evident that they cannot govern,” she added.
Sharmila slammed the Chief Minister saying “You are the dictator who wants to stop us. Your actions are proof of this.”
Several hundreds of police personnel were posted since morning at the Congress party office to foil Sharmila’s march. She had given the call of “Chalo Secretariat” alleging that the government had failed to fill up 23,000 teachers’ posts in the past five years and announced recruitment for only 6,000 post just before elections, calling it a ”fraud DSC ”(teacher’s recruitment process) instead of ”mega DSC” as claimed by the YSRCP.
The Andhra Pradesh District Selection Committee (AP DSC) released a notification for the various teaching positions in the state.
Earlier in the day, a video of Sharmila sleeping on a mattress had gone viral. Another video showed Congress leaders sleeping in the office premises after the police launched a crackdown to foil the march. Section 144 was also imposed in the area. With the police surrounding the party office, Sharmila, Congress leaders and workers sat on a dharna. She claimed thousands of policemen were surrounding them and they were being held hostage by putting iron barricades.