TDP demo outside Parliament House

The Telugu Desam members of Parliament on Monday began demonstrations against the river projects under way in the neighbouring states in contravention of the norms prescribed for the riparian states.

 The Tdp leaders staged a dharna in front of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi on the Parliament House complex on Monday morning in protest against the Babhli  project being built across river Godavari by the Maharashtra Government. The leaders also protested against the high-handed treatment meted out to 74 Tdp leaders by Maharashtra policemen who bundled them into a chartered plane back to Hyderabad.

 Earlier, the Telugu Desam MPs met Speaker Meira Kumar and handed her over a memorandum explaining the brutal attacks on the Tdp leaders at Dharmabad. The Speaker heard the grievances of the MPs sympathetically and forwarded the plea to the Privileges panel of the House.

 Meanwhile, Tdp supremo N Chandrababu Naidu who is currently comping in New Delhi is expected to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the evening over the 'illegal' construction of the Babhli dam in Maharashtra across the river Godavari, told reporters outside Parliament that he has sought an appointment with Dr Singh in this regard.

 The Andhra Pradesh Government has been protesting the construction of the dam, which it says is being built in violation of the river water sharing agreements and would prove detrimental to its interests.

An all-party meeting had been called by the state government last week to represent the Babhli row to the Prime Minister, but the Telugu Desam is not taking part in the delegation due to technical reasons. 

The row over the Babhli dam created tension last week when Maharashtra Police arrested Naidu and 74 other Tdp leaders while they were proceeding towards the dam. They were kept in judicial custody for four days before being forcibly sent back to Hyderabad by a chartered flight.