The much talked about Telangana Rana Bheri public meeting, organized by the TDP Telangana Forum, began around 7.15 pm in Karimnagar today amid quite a tension generated by the threats of the TRS activists to disrupt it.

Rana Bheri, the first TDP public meeting in favour of separate state of Telangana, was presided over by senior leader Errabilli Dayakara Rao and attended by 25 TDP MLAs and 3 MPs of the Telangana region.12 MLAs of the party did not turn up for the meeting. Party MPs Nama Nageswara Rao, Gundu Sudha Rani and Ramesh Rathod were present.

As soon as the meeting began and senior leader Revanth Reddy rose to speak, some TRS activists barged on to the dais and took away the mike from him but police succeeded in sending the TRS workers away.

The TRS activists, raising slogans in favour of Telangana, tried to disrupt the proceedings and in the melee, camera equipment of the ABN channel was destroyed. When the journalists questioned the behaviour of the TRS activists, they too were attacked.

Amid all this pandemonium, Revanth reddy began his speech saying that TRS has been trying to strengthen itself while Nagam Janardhan reddy is hobnobbing with Union Minister Jai Pal Reddy on the one side and with YSR Congress president YS Jaganmohan Reddy on the other to weaken the Telugu Desam party.

“Why do you object to the meeting when we are conducting it seeking separate Telangana?” asked Revanth Reddy.