Maha treated us like prisoners: Naidu

Telugu Desam president N. Chandrababu Naidu who was accorded a hero's reception after his return to the state, on Wednesday said the Maharashtra government ill-treated him and his party workers for five-days in Dharmanabad.

 Recounting his stay in Maharashtra, Naidu said he and the 75 TDP leaders were treated like “political prisoners” and not like elected public representatives.

 Addressing a dharna in front of Mahatma Gandhi statue on the Assembly premises here on Wednesday, Naidu said ''they tried to physically and mentally intimidate us. They tormented us in all ways possible. I have not come across such an atrocious situation in my 32-year-old political career,” he alleged.

The dharna was organised to denounce the Maharashtra government’s “misbehaviour” against Naidu and the party MLAs during their detention when they went to inspect the Babli irrigation project.

“Lambsting at Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K. Rosaiah, the TDP chief said, “he is the most inefficient Chief Minister I have ever seen. He is so shameless that he remained a silent spectator when his fellow legislators were treated so inhumanly by the neighbouring state.”

Rosaiah has no right to continue in his position, Naidu said.“It’s only due to God’s grace and blessings of Mahatma Gandhi that TDP legislators came back alive from Maharashtra. The whole episode was an affront to Telugu pride and a grave insult to the Telugu people,” he added.