Amid a high-voltage drama, a defiant TDP chief N Chandrababu Naidu was put on a special aircraft and flown back to Hyderabad with his supporters this evening after Maharashtra government withdrew cases against them in connection with their protest on the Babhli dam issue. The denouement to the dramatic events that unfolded last Friday with their arrest at Dharmabad on Andhra Pradesh border, came when the former chief minister and TDP legislators were forcibly put on a chartered flight arranged by the Maharashtra government.
Officials speaking on condition of anonymity said some of them had to be physically lifted to the airplane after they squatted on the runway shouting "we want justice" while others boarded without offering resistance. Naidu and his contingent of TDP legislators and leaders were earlier scheduled to be taken to Aurangabad prison after being transferred from the makeshift jail at Industrial Training Institute at Dharmabad this morning. According to Bharat Bhosle, the superintendent of Aurangabad jail, two barracks were kept ready for them. However, eager to wriggle out of the sticky situation after Naidu declined to accept bail, the Maharashtra government, in a last minute change in script, dropped the charges to pave the way for his return.
The home department faxed a letter to Nanded district collector asking him to inform the Dharmabad court through the public prosecutor that the government was withdrawing the case relating to violation of 144 CrPC (prohibitory orders) against Naidu and others.
Earlier in the day, tempers ran high at the Dharmabad ITI where TDP legislators and leaders scuffled with the police, who allegedly used force to make them board the vehicles to take them to Aurangabad.
Some legislators were alleged to have been injured and their mobile phones damaged in the melee in which Naidu's shirt was claimed to have been torn.
Apparently upset over the developments, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K Rosaiah issued a statement condemning the police action and announcing that he would lead an all-party delegation to Delhi to meet the Prime Minister.
There were protests in Hyderabad where enraged TDP workers burnt effigies of Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan and made attempts to gratecrash into a meeting Union Finance Minsiter Pranab Mukherjee was having with the Finance Ministers of southern states.
In Maharashtra too, Shiv Sena and MNS workers showed black flags to Naidu on way from Dharmabad to Aurangabad and also shouted slogans against him at the airport.
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