The Telanagna assembly bore witness to violent scenes yesterday, after council chairman Swamy Goud was hospitalised for being injured in his eye, thanks to a headphone thrown by a Congress MLA. The MLA has reportedly been identified as Komatireddy Venkat Reddy, who had thrown the headphone at the podium while the national anthem was being played.
This attack supposedly was one of the aspects of the protest, which included congress legislators tearing and flinging papers, after accusing the ruing Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) government for being “anti-farmer”. The drama played out on the first day of the state’s budget session.
As per the injured Swamy Goud, headphones were flung during the governor’s address but they didn’t hit anybody. Things though weren’t as lucky the second time round, and when everyone stood for the national anthem another headphone was flung, which hit him in the eye.
Legislative affairs minister T Harish Rao called it an attack on democracy, and claimed that speaker Madhsudhana Chary, would decide on the action to be taken against the erring Congress MLAs.
Since then the intensity of the allegations have increased, and the TRS had alleged that the Congress MLAs came to the assembly while drunk.
As per Palla Rajeshwar Reddy, who is the TRS whip, owing to the inebriated state of the Congress MLAs, they resorted to violence like throwing headphones, paper balls and mikes at the council chairman, speaker and the governor.
He thus demanded that the Congress MLAs be arrested and that criminal proceedings be initiated against them. He even alleged that one of the drunk Congress MLAs fell on their leader Jana Reddy, this irked the latter who then proceeded to leave the assembly premises.
The Congress though has come out to refute this allegation. As per reports, opposition leader K Jana Reddy has strongly denied the allegations that the Congress MLAs were drunk. He also proceeded to “defend” their violent actions by claiming that government was trying to stifle the voice of the opposition in the assembly. He even claimed that his own right knee was “severely injured” after he was attacked by the police and marshals.