`Garbage politics’ escalated tension between Kadapa’s TDP MLA Madhavi Reddy and YCP’s city Mayor Suresh Babu. Tension mounted when some TDP workers threw garbage at the Mayor’s house. The mayor staged a sit-in in front of the police station to protest against the dumping of garbage in front of his house and demanded action against TDP workers.
Tension mounted after several corporators joined him and police took him into custody. After holding discussion with him they pacified the crowd. The issue started when some TDP activists approached MLA Madhavi Reddy with a complaint that municipal staff stopped door to door garbage collection.
Responding to this, Madhavi Reddy gave a mass warning that if the garbage collection is not taken up from house to house, the garbage will be taken away and thrown in front of the mayor’s house. She alleged that the mayor stopped the garbage collection with the intention of bringing bad name to the Telugu Desam government.
However, Mayor Suresh Babu said they reduced the number of vehicles because they could not afford the maintenance of the vehicles and the salaries of the staff. He said that people are not paying garbage bills as per the government’s order, and as a result, the collection of bills has stopped for three months and due to this, they have not been able to pay salaries to the staff.
Then, some TDP workers went along with people on Tuesday and threw garbage into the house of Mayor Suresh Babu in Chinna Chowk. This led to the controversy. The nearby sanitation workers immediately reached Suresh Babu’s house and started removing the garbage.
The mayor also immediately reached home with some followers. After noticing the situation, went on foot to Chinna Chowk Police Station. As the local people also came in large numbers in this padayatra, there was a tense situation in front of the police station. The police locked the station gate and blocked the Mayor.