Congress workers attack BRS party office in Manuguru, set furniture on fire

Violence broke out in Manuguru as around 1,000 Congress workers attacked the BRS mandal office, injuring party members and setting furniture ablaze. The mob claimed ownership of the building, renamed it ‘Indiramma Bhavanam’, and replaced BRS symbols with Congress flags.

Kothagudem: In a clear indication of the rising lawlessness in the State, ruling Congress party workers resorted to violence against the opposition, with a huge mob of about 1,000 Congress leaders and workers attacking the BRS mandal office at Manuguru and forcibly claiming ownership of the building.

The violent attack saw the Congress workers attacking BRS activists and setting furniture on fire leading to high tension in the town on Sunday.

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The Congress leaders and workers reached the BRS office and first assaulted BRS workers present there, inflicting bleeding injuries on two of the party workers. The Congress workers then tore down the BRS flags, removed the flag post, repainted the walls, hoisted Congress party flags and displayed a flex banner renaming the office as ‘Indiramma Bhavanam’, replacing the name ‘Telangana Bhavan’.

They threw out plastic chairs, almirahs and wooden furniture from the premises and set them on fire. The local residents immediately alerted firefighters, who rushed to the spot and doused the flames. Though the police arrived at the scene, they failed to disperse the Congress mob.

The entire episode appeared to be pre-planned, since Pinapaka Congress leaders had for some time been claiming ownership of the office building, which was built by BRS district president Rega Kantha Rao when he got elected as MLA for the first time in 2009 on a Congress ticket.

When Kantha Rao joined the BRS in June 2019 after getting elected on a Congress ticket in 2018, he changed the office into Telangana Bhavan and since then it was being used as the Pinapaka constituency BRS headquarters. A few years ago, Congress workers staged a protest demanding Kantha Rao hand over the office building to the Congress.

In a statement, Kantha Rao strongly condemned the attack by Congress workers on Telangana Bhavan. It was shameful that the local MLA Payam Venkateswarlu and the three ministers in the district had instigated the Congress workers to attack the BRS party office, he alleged, adding that the Congress leaders were not able to digest the BRS party’s fight against the injustice being done to the district due to non-release of funds for development.

They were resorting to physical attacks to deflect the blame, he said, appealing to BRS workers to stage protests in all mandal headquarters against the attack on the Telangana Bhavan.