Violence returned to Telangana on Wednesday after a week. The students’ Joint Action Committee (JAC) was back on the streets, shutting down theatres and burning posters of movies featuring Praja Rajyam Party leader Chiranjeevi’s family members.
The students earlier hijacked the statehood agitation from the Telangana Rashtra Samiti boss K. Chandrasekhar Rao. They went back to colleges only after Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s late-night statement on Telangana a week ago.
The students were provoked by Chiranjeevi’s flip-flop over Telangana and enthused by
a victory meeting organised
by a group of Telangana-based Congress leaders in Hyderabad.
Chiranjeevi`s brothers Pawan Kalyan and Naga Babu, son Charan and nephew Allu Arjun are popular stars, while his brother-in-law Allu Arvind is a producer. The family members together churned out two-dozen odd movies last year.
The TRS and Congress leaders do not want the Congress high command to think that things have cooled down in Telangana. The unopposed agitation by the leaders of coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema should not give them “other ideas”, said a TRS leader.
The TRS did not join the Congress-sponsored victory meeting. Instead, it extended support to the JAC’s demand for boycott of all the movies of Chiranjeevi’s family members.
The Telangana Congress leader’s strategy behind the victory rally was to ensure the party leadership stuck to its stand. “We wanted to thank Sonia Gandhi and the Centre for giving us Telangana,” said K. Jana Reddy, a former minister.