In midnight drama, police detain Telangana BJP chief Bandi Sanjay on way to Munugode

Bandi Sanjay Kumar sat down on the highway in protest along with party workers demanding TRS leaders to be sent out of the Munugodu constituency

In a cat-and-mouse game of midnight high drama, the Telangana police took Telangana BJP president and Karimnagar MP Bandi Sanjay Kumar into custody and initially shifted him to Abdullahpur police station before allowing him to go the State office in Nampally on Thursday morning.

Mr. Sanjay Kumar was chased by the police post midnight when he and his entourage began their way to the Munugode Assembly constituency where polling was about to begin in the morning for the high stakes bypoll.

They tried to stop him first at Malakpet and later at L.B. Nagar, but the cavalcade forced its way through before the police finally managed to obstruct his convoy by placing trucks, excavators and their own vehicles as barricade on the national highway at the Ramoji Film City.

Despite the MP strongly protesting his arrest and the partymen shouting slogans against the State government and the police, he and a few other leaders were forcibly taken to the police station even as the cadre and television media vehicles kept up a chase.

“Telangana is witnessing the murder of democracy with the manner in which the TRS regime is trying to use the police to obstruct us. We wanted to stand by our partymen being threatened by the ruling party workers in the constituency. Why did the police not ensure the TRS MLAs and their personnel move out of the area,” he questioned.

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The MP for a while sat down on the highway in protest along with party workers even as the vehicle traffic came to a grinding hall on both sides. While the BJP workers tried to form a cordon around the party president, the police after much jostling, pushing and caning, took him away to the police station.