india

Updated: May 04, 2019 18:38 IST

A woman lawmaker in Telangana, who recently defected from the Congress to the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi, faced the fury of her former party’s supporters who attacked her with stones and chappals on Saturday when she entered a village in her constituency to campaign for a TRS candidate in the local body elections.

Banothu Haripriya Naik, who represents Yellandu assembly constituency in Khammam district, visited Govindrala village of Kamepalli block in the morning to campaign for TRS candidate Lakhavarthu Sunitha contesting as mandal parishad (block) territorial constituency member.

As the MLA entered the village in an open-top vehicle, followed by the local TRS workers, irate villagers, mostly Congress supporters, shouted at her and asked her to go back. They questioned how she dared to enter the village after betraying them by defecting to the TRS.

“We toiled day and night in the assembly elections held in December to get Haripriya elected braving tough fight with the TRS. But within a couple of months becoming the MLA, she joined the TRS betraying our faith,” an angry Congress worker told local reporters.

As the Congress workers started pelting stones and chappals at Haripriya, the TRS workers formed a shield around her and saved her from the attack. The shocked MLA got back into her car and left the village, while the TRS workers retaliated by pelting stones back at the Congress workers. At least five people were injured in the stone pelting.

Police stopped the situation from getting out of hand by dispersing the warring groups. “We immediately shifted the injured to the Yellandu hospital for treatment. The situation is under the control now,” sub-inspector Tirupati Reddy said.

Police beefed up the security it the village and are trying to pacify the leaders of both parties to bring normalcy.

Haripriya could not be reached for her comment.

The Telangana unit of the Congress has been protesting against alleged “illegal poaching” of its MLAs by the TRS to eliminate an opposition in the state. The Congress won 19 seats in the elections to 119-member assembly in December and of them, 11 MLAs have defected to the TRS, leaving the grand old party with just eight members.

Congress Legislature Party leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka, who began Prajaswamya Parirakshana Yatra (Save Democracy tour) from Khammam on Monday , called upon the party workers to pull up the defected MLAs for ditching the party.

He demanded that the turncoat MLAs be booked under Section 420 (cheating) of Indian Penal Code, as they cheated the people who voted for them against the TRS.

“Defecting from one party into other party was a matter of concern to all people. The Constitutional bodies should respond to the issue without delay,” he said.

A TRS leader said on condition of anonymity that defection of MLAs from the opposition to the ruling party was not a new phenomenon. “Even during the Congress regime between 2004 and 2009, then chief minister Y S Rajasekhar Reddy poached several TRS MLAs into the Congress,” he pointed out.