The Andhra Pradesh Police on Tuesday detained several BJP leaders, including its national secretaries Sunil Deodhar and Satya Kumar, after they took part in a protest march demanding the renaming of the Jinnah Tower after former president APJ Abdul Kalam, India Today reported.
The Jinnah Tower is a pre-independence monument located on Mahatma Gandhi Road, an arterial road in Guntur.
The BJP and other Hindutva organisations have been demanding for the past few months that the tower should be renamed, according to PTI. Deodhar led the protest on Tuesday.
BJP Rajya Sabha MP GVL Narasimha Rao said that the party condemns the police’s “high-handed behaviour”. He wrote on Twitter, “Wonder if we are in AP [Andhra Pradesh] or Pakistan.”
Deodhar accused the YS Jagan Mohan Reddy-led government of “appeasing minorities” and behaving in an autocratic manner.
The BJP’s Andhra Pradesh chief, Somu Veerraju, said that it was not just his party but also citizens in general who wanted the tower to be renamed, according to PTI. “The state government cannot adopt an oppressive stance over our demand,” he added.
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