Lagadapati all set for show of strength

Vijayawada: Sticking to his guns on united Andhra, Lagadapati Rajagopal, MP, on Wednesday reiterated that he would quit public life as and when separate Telangana is formed. The MP is organising a public meeting at the PWD grounds in Vijayawada on Dec 18 for which he claimed over a lakh people would attend. “I am not agitating for personal gains. I have undertaken the fast for the sake of the people who want united Andhra,” he told reporters here on the second day of his fastunto-death. He said there was no point in continuing in public life in a divided state and added there was no selfish agenda behind the agitations of leaders from Coastal and Rayalaseema regions. “The strong aspirations of the people have driven the leaders to quit their MP and MLA posts,” he said and added that Friday’s public meeting would testify the larger public mood against the bifurcation of the state. He charged the leaders of Telangana with misleading the Centre and the Congress high command. Meanwhile, the fast-unto-death of TDP leaders Devineni Umamaheswara Rao and Bonda Umamaheswara Rao entered fourth day on Wednesday. Amid high drama, police arrested TDP legislator Chinnam Ramakotaiah and former mayor Panchumarthi Anuradha from the fast-unto-death camp and shifted them to hospital in the early hours of Wednesday. Police swooped on the ZP guest house premises where the leaders were staging the hunger stir at around 3 am, a few hours after city police commissioner K V Rajendranath Reddy clamped Section 144 of IPC in the city for next one week. TDP leaders had built a barricade of party activists since late hours of Tuesday to prevent the arrest.