BJP’S ‘countdown clock’ for KCR rule stops ticking
Police barricade road leading to the BJP office for safety
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which launched a countdown clock and installed it at its party headquarters at Nampally declaring that it shows the number of days and hours that the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) government has left to stay in power in Telangana, switched it off on Monday.
The development followed a visit to the BJP office by the Abids police in the morning who told the BJP office staffers present that they would first need to seek permission from the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) for erecting any signage or display boards.
The police said they rushed to the BJP office following a tip off that some TRS activists were likely to go the BJP office to protest against the ‘countdown clock’. It may be recalled that TRS leaders on Sunday, strongly protested the installation of the countdown clock and threatened to install cut-outs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and place garlands of chappals on them if the BJP did not take down its countdown clock.
“On being informed that TRS activists would agitate before the BJP office, we rushed to the scene but the information was wrong. As the digital boards were installed right on the boundary wall of the BJP office without the GHMC permission, we asked them to switch it off,” B Prasad, Abids police inspector said.
No case was registered as the BJP workers present there did not resist, Prasad said.
However, as a preventive measure to ensure no untoward incident occurs, the road leading to the BJP office was barricaded by the police for a while.
Sources in the special branch and the state intelligence said the entire area including the BJP office was considered to be a VIP area and paramilitary forces and interceptor vehicles with armed staff are always deployed 24/7 in the surrounding areas. Apart from this, armed forces quick action teams are posted as a standby in case of emergency.
● THE POLICE said they rushed to the BJP office following a tip off that some TRS activists were likely to go the BJP office to protest against the ‘countdown clock’.