Highways turn protest venues

Vehicular traffic on State and national highways in undivided Nalgonda came to a grinding halt for about two hours on Tuesday, as leaders of several parties chose the shiny blacktops as protest venues and made statements ‘for Bharat bandh’.

Starting from Hayathnagar in Hyderabad, at the entrance to NH-65 (Hyderabad-Vijayawada), and up to Suryapet, there were several instances of traffic jam. Leaders of at least five political parties and their farmer organisations led the blockades, raised slogans and spoke to media persons.

Some of the major sites of traffic congestion on the highway were Choutuppal and the toll plaza at Pantangi, Nakrekal junction and Kethepally, where prominent leaders along with their supporters, staged sit-in.

At Choutuppal, between 11 a.m. and 12.30 p.m., vehicles were stranded, and with the availability of service roads, medium and small vehicles were diverted.

Chityal also witnessed vehicle stranding for about half an hour, from the junction till the railway gate. As a preventive step, the Chityal police detained some 20 TRS activists, 16 of the Congress and 15 others for about an hour, and ensured continuous traffic flow.

Minor halting and queues of traffic was also found at Narketpally. But Nakrekal and Kethepally, two other major points, witnessed maximum traffic with TRS, CPI(M) and Congress leaders participating in large numbers.

And for leaders from Nalgonda and Miryalaguda, State highways such as the Narketpally-Addanki and Nagarjunasagar highway were the hotspots.

Return journey passengers, towards Hyderabad, had to wait at toll plaza.

With all the traffic released around the same time, at Nakrekal, Narketpally and Chityal, another hour of vehicular congestion was reported at the Panthangi toll plaza. Toll officials soon declared all the nine gates as Fastag-cum-cash, and deployed additional staff with handheld machines to expedite traffic flow.

Police officials along the national and State highways said there were no untoward incidents reported, and the bandh passed off smoothly.