Police detained former Ramagundam MLA Korukanti Chander and several senior BRS leaders on Tuesday, November 3, after a bulldozer and gas cutters went after a pylon in Godavarikhani that was built to mark development under KCR’s rule. The pylon carries the name of KTR, who was the municipal administration minister when it was unveiled.

The pylon went up on May 8, 2023, at the Gandhi Nagar Chowk in Godavarikhani. The Ramagundam Municipal Corporation built it. KTR personally launched it at the time, inaugurating development works worth Rs 112.65 crore across the municipal limits. Then-minister Koppula Eshwar, chief whip Bhanu Prasad Rao and MLA Korukanti Chander were present when a steel pylon was also unveiled at the same chowk.

Officials began their move at 9 am on Tuesday. Municipal town planning staff arrived with police forces and a bulldozer, aiming to pull the structure out along with its foundations. That plan failed. The pylon was too firmly set, so workers turned to gas cutters and cut it down. A crane was then rigged with ropes to lift it away.

Party leaders dig in on the road

The moment the crane started moving, BRS leaders rushed to the spot. Former MLA Korukanti Chander led the resistance, joined by state leaders Moola Vijaya Reddy, Vallala Harish Reddy and Kaushika Hari, along with municipal floor leader Mekala Sammaiah, corporators and workers. They sat down on the road in front of the crane and blocked it for roughly six hours in the scorching midday heat.

Chander refused to budge. He insisted the pylon be put back in its original place and warned that serious consequences would follow if anyone moved it even an inch. Police tried every approach they had. Their negotiators held talks with the local ACP, the One Town circle inspector and other officers. The municipal commissioner, Arunasri, was put on the phone with the protesters and told them the pylon would be set up at another location within two or three days.

BRS cadres did not trust the assurance. They say the promise was a stalling tactic. The protest grew more heated as the afternoon wore on, and workers accused the state government of pushing through what they called a deliberate campaign to erase every trace of KCR and KTR from the town.

This is not a rule, it is a kingdom of thieves and a kingdom of loot.

That line came from Chander, who blasted the officials and the state government in harsh terms. He said Revanth was running the state and that Raj Thakur was running Ramagundam with what he described as demonic rule. He used the word rakshasa, or demonic, repeatedly while speaking to the crowd.

Police move in with additional forces

After the six-hour sit-in, the pylon was apparently to stay where it stood, and the protesters eased off. Then the mood shifted. Officials returned to the site, and as the pylon was being loaded again, party leaders and workers stepped in to block the vehicle. Police brought in extra forces, dispersed the crowd and pushed back the agitators.

Scuffles broke out between workers and police. Officers then deployed what local reports described as an ashta digbandhanam, an eight-sided cordon, to isolate the top leaders. Chander, Vijaya Reddy, Harish Reddy, Kaushika Hari, Sammaiah and Maruti were forcibly placed into separate vehicles and driven to Jaipur, Kamanpur and other undisclosed locations.

The detentions turned the streets of Godavarikhani into a flashpoint. Several workers suffered minor injuries. Some had their clothes torn, and slippers were scattered across the road. A group of cadres camped outside the One Town police station and refused to leave until they were told where their leaders had been taken.

An effigy and a warning

As the arrests unfolded, Chander ordered a symbolic act in front of the crane. Party workers set fire to an effigy of Ramagundam MLA Makkan Singh. Chander then issued a warning. He said the days of Congress rakshasa rule were numbered and that a war would follow if anyone touched the traces of KCR. He also vowed that protests would continue daily, in stages.

Chander also took aim at the justification officials offered for the removal. They said the pylon was causing accidents. Chander answered sharply that an Indira Gandhi statue near the MLA’s camp office has also caused many accidents, and asked why that structure was not being removed.

Why the pylon matters in Telangana politics

For BRS, the pylon is more than concrete and steel. It is a marker of the development push the party says KCR and KTR delivered to Ramagundam, a city that the party wants remembered as a showcase of its tenure. The fact that the structure was removed in the middle of a political contest has turned a civic work into a loud statement about who controls the town’s identity.

The episode also shows how local civic actions can quickly become state-level political fights in Telangana. The officials’ explanation rests on road safety, while the BRS leadership frames the operation as targeted erasure. Both claims now sit side by side in public, and the assurance of relocation in two or three days has done little to calm the party.

What happens next depends on whether the municipal corporation follows through on its promise, and whether BRS keeps its daily agitation going. The people of Godavarikhani have already seen one full day of roads blocked, leaders hauled away and workers bruised. The pylon may move, but the fight over who gets to decide what stays in the town square is far from finished.

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