The Maharashtra government dropped all cases against Telugu Desam president N. Chandrababu Naidu and 65 party MLAs before they reached Aurangabad jail and forced them to board a special flight to Hyderabad on Tuesday night.
The TD leaders, tired but triumphant, reached Hyderabad’s Shamshabad Airport at around 10 pm to a tumultuous welcome from hundreds of jubilant yellow-flag-waving party activists and leaders.
Mr Naidu’s wife, Mrs Bhuvaneshwari, and his son, Mr Lokesh, were at the airport along with family members of other MLAs to welcome them. The TD estimates that the political stock of Mr Naidu has shot up dramatically after his trip to the Babli project site, the arrest and the confinement. Maharashtra took the decision to fly back the TD leaders after hectic parleys with the Centre and the AP government.
Mr Naidu and 70-odd MLAs were arrested on July 16 on the Andhra Pradesh-Maharashtra border village of Bidrelli, about 10 km from the temple town of Basar, when they attempted to go to the site of the Babli irrigation project.