Barring some urban pockets, the State bandh called by the Telugu Desam Party to protest the arrest of party chief N. Chandrababu Naidu evoked poor to lukewarm response in the rural areas of the combined Chittoor and Kadapa districts on Monday.
Apart from imposing Section 144 and the Police Act 30, the police administration tackled the small number of TDP cadres enforcing the bandh even as a majority of the party leaders at the district, constituency, mandal, and village levels were kept under house arrests since Friday night.
In Chittoor, the TDP cadres hit the streets before dawn to enforce the bandh but were soon taken into custody and shifted to various police stations. Business establishments and private educational institutions voluntarily remained closed to avoid untoward incidents. The APSRTC bus station here looked deserted till 9.00 a.m., though the buses were operated as usual, but did not have occupancy till noon.
Traffic came to a halt for a while on the busy Chittoor-Puttur highway when the TDP activists set tyres on fire and blocked the road at Sri Rangaraja Puram mandal headquarters in Gangadhara Nellore assembly constituency. Similarly, traffic on the Bengaluru-Tirupati NH was diverted at Bangarupalem, passing through Aragonda and Kanipakam bypass roads when the TDP cadres staged a protest near Moghili ghat.
In Kuppam, additional police forces were deployed as a precautionary measure, as it is represented by TDP chief Chandrababu Naidu. The TDP cadres organised a rasta roko on the outskirts of Kuppam on the busy Krishnagiri-Palamaner NH, but the police had swung into action and cleared the blockade.
In Tirupati, except for a couple of hours of the presence of the party cadres at public places enforcing the bandh, everything turned normal from 10:00 a.m. onwards.
Mild tension prevailed at Srikalahasti at the NTR Statue Junction after the TDP cadres entered into a heated argument with the police, who prompted them to leave the place. About 15 party cadres were taken into custody and later released.
At Venkatagiri town, the police objected to the TDP cadres pitching a tent in front of the mandal parishad office. About 35 activists were arrested in this connection.
The response to the bandh was poor in Kadapa and Rayachoti of YSR and Annamayya districts, which are the strongholds of the ruling YSRCP. The APSRTC buses were seen operating without interruption all over the combined district.
