PM visit: Naidu, TDP workers taken into preventive custody

HYDERABAD: Telugu Desam Party President N Chandrababu Naidu and scores of party workers were on Tuesday taken into preventive custody after they tried to stage demonstrations near Begumpet airport here protesting against reportedly being denied permission to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is on a day's visit to the city.

The TDP workers, who made a futile demand for an appointment to meet the Prime Minister on the issues of microfinance institutions and farmers of the state, shouted anti-government slogans and held dharna. Naidu too joined them in their protests.

However, police intervened and stopped the TDP chief from staging the demonstration and put the protestors into the vans even as the activists indulged in heated arguments with the police.

"In democracy, everyone has a right to meet the Prime Minister. Later he was taken into custody by the city police," Naidu, who was not allowed to meet the PM, said.

Condemning the police action, he said, "It is the responsibility of the state Chief Minister K Rosaiah to take all party representation to the Prime Minister," and warned of intensifying the agitation across the state.

Naidu, alongwith other TDP leaders and activists, were later taken to Amberpet Police station.