It has been three days since the Telugu Desam Party, along with its political allies in Andhra Pradesh – the Jana Sena Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party – lodged a complaint against top police officials of the state for their alleged conspiracy in sabotaging the Praja Galam public meeting addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Chilakaluripet in Palnadu district on Sunday.
The National Democratic Alliance partners named Director General of Police K V Rajendranath Reddy, Additional DGP (intelligence) P S R Anjaneyulu, inspector general (Guntur range) G Pala Raju and Palnadu superintendent of police Ravi Sankhar Reddy as responsible for the chaos at the Prime Minister’s rally.
They submitted the representation to chief electoral officer Mukesh Kumar Meena, who forwarded the same to the Election Commission of India.
The TDP leaders claimed that Modi was upset with the top police officials and so, he would definitely order action against them.
Even pro-TDP media reported the next day that the ECI has taken serious note of the complaint and the Union home ministry was also angry with the top cops.
“The action against the erring police officials might be taken any moment,” they reported.
Yet, there has been no such indication from the Centre.
The ECI which ordered shifting of several DGPs and senior officials in different states like West Bengal and Punjab, has remained tight-lipped on the TDP complaint.
Interestingly, there has been no statement from any senior BJP leaders criticising the police department for its failures. Even those BJP leaders who signed the petition given to the CEO were only small-time leaders.
Apparently, the BJP national leadership and the state BJP leaders are said to be of the view that the chaos at the Modi rally was mainly due to the mismanagement of the TDP organisers, rather than the cops.
“The TDP organisers failed to take enough precautions to prevent the crowds from surging forward, disrupting the mike systems and climbing up the electric towers. There were no responsible party volunteers to control the crowds. The police, of course, were not in enough numbers to control them,” a BJP leader said.