HYDERABAD: Desperate to ensure that the Nandyal Lok Sabha by collection does not run the risk of being countermanded, an eventuality which could spell a freak end to Narasimha Rao’s tenure as Prime Minister, the Andhra Pradesh Congress leadership has taken recourse 1o methods more appropriate to an extremist outfit than party in power. Independent candidates are getting a taste of Congress hooliganism and as many as 17 of them were abducted, wrongfully confined or otherwise. Prevented from filing nomination papers. But the five who managed to do it in the spite of intimidation, have overnight secured VIP status and all the attendant security tapings.
When withdrawals closed on Monday, seven candidates including Narasimha Rao and BJP’s Bangaru Laxman, were left in the field despite Congress efforts to bully the independents. According to one account, local police abetted the crime and the returning officer, who is the collector of Kumool, was a helpless spectator. The govt information center, just a stone’s throw from the collector ate, was virtually converted into-a camp office of the Congress and used as the ‘abduction chamber.
Azad Sheikh Mastan Ali of Hyderabad, who has fought 32 elections and by- elections in the state against an array of celebrities, went to Kurnool on October 8 to find a proposer. When local Congress bigwigs came to know of his intentions, he was warned not to enter the fray. But Ali was undaunted. As he was coming out of the collectorate with the nomination papers, he was pounced upon by Congress goons and hustled into awaiting vehicle, right under the nose of the district police chief. He was lodged in a local hotel for three days and given a sound thrashing before being let off.
Undeterred, Ali went back to Kunool again on October 17 to file his papers. This time, the Congressmen didn’t take the trouble of carting him off, but chose a room ‘next to the collector’s own makeshift election office. He was denied the nomination papers.
Interestingly, it was the Bharatiya Janata Party leaders who helped Ali out of his ‘prison’. As they were going in procession to file to papers of their nominee, they chanced to hear the shrieks of Ali and rushed to his rescue. The BJP workers realized the gravity of the situation only when Ali reaching the collectorate told why he had ‘been gagged and kept in wrongful confinement.
I would have been killed by Congressman” he said, “Is it a crime to contest against the Prime Minister”.
Sanjeeva Reddy, president of the Rayalaseema Farmer’s Association, also had similar experience. He told newsmen that he was abducted on October 15 from the collectorate as a large number of people, including police and intelligence official, looked on. He accused some Congress legislators and a state party general secretary of being the brains behind the whole drama.
He was whisked away a second time, by intelligence men in civvies, the same day. “It is belter you withdraw from the contest”, a police officer reportedly told Reddy.
He was later taken outside the collectorate and handed over to the waiting Congressmen, who drove me away and lodged me in a dark room. Reddy claims that the place is owned by a relative of Union minister, K. Vijayabhaskar Reddy.
Among the other alleged kidnap victims at Nandyal are Hanumantha Reddy, an advocate from Atmakur, Nivarthi Rao from Hyderabad, D.V.R, Chowdhury from Eluru, and Madditetty from Kumool. The returning officer is even alleged to have rejected the nomination papers of some other prospective independent candidates. That included Veerappa Gounder, a habitual contender from Tamil Nadu who was going around his home state with police guards from Uttar Pradesh in May-June after filing his papers against Rajiv Gandhi and then Chandra Shekhar.
BJP candidate Bangaru Laxman says that the Congress had kidnapped some 12 independents. The returning officer had also deliberately rejected some other nominations, he adds:
Article extracted from this publication >> November 1, 1991
