Midnight plinth, midday protest
Narsampet municipal staff tore down a plinth built for former MLA and BRS leader Peddi Sudarshan Reddy’s statue in the middle of the night. By morning, BRS was on the road asking why permissions appear to matter only when the Congress is in office.
The plinth was removed at night; the paperwork remains unseen.
Narsampet municipal officials used earthmovers late Sunday, 9 August, to demolish the pedestal raised for a statue of former MLA and senior BRS leader Peddi Sudarshan Reddy opposite the Government Medical College at Sarvapuram. Officials reportedly said permission had not been obtained to install the statue. By Monday, BRS leaders were on a rasta roko and clashing with police who tried to detain them.
BRS leaders including Errabelli Dayakar Rao, MLC Takkallapalli Ravinder Rao and former MP Boinapally Vinod Kumar joined the protest. Former ZP chairman Akula Srinivas said the plinth was on private land and that a Bhumi Pooja had been performed days earlier; he alleged the demolition came as preparations were being made for the 11th‑day memorial. Those are his claims; the municipality has not published an order, notice or section invoked, and no land record was placed on the record in the reports.
A separate local report echoed the “no permission” line for removing the platform and carried images of Sudarshan Reddy’s wife, Peddi Swapna, at the site after the operation. The BRS’s description of a stealthy, after‑hours job is theirs; the municipality has not bothered to explain why a late‑night teardown was necessary, or why a written order is so hard to show when everyone’s phone has a camera.
What is not in dispute is the sequence: night demolition, morning protest. What remains missing is the Congress‑run local body’s paperwork. The BJP will discover due process the day after it helps Telangana; the TDP will discover Telangana the day after that. For now, the Congress’s municipality in Narsampet has not deigned to answer why permission rules switch on at midnight.