NEW DELHI, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- A court in the western Indian state of Maharashtra has issued an arrest warrant against Chief Minister of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh N. Chandrababu Naidu and 15 others for staging an agitation in 2010.
"The court in the state's Nanded district issued the arrest warrant Thursday and ordered police to produce Naidu and others, including two serving Ministers, by Sept. 21. This was after they failed to appear before the court despite repeated summons," a lawyer said Friday.
The Andhra Pradesh chief minister, then the state's opposition leader, and 15 others are accused of an agitation near a construction site in Maharashtra's Godavari river. They were opposing the project alleging that it would affect the people downstream.
Though police had booked them under several cases and arrested them, all were released but none took bail.
The arrest warrant is likely to kick up a political storm in the state as Naidu's Telugu Desam Party had earlier this year pulled out of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government over special status to Andhra Pradesh.
Telugu Desam Party has been long demanding special status as promised after Telangana state was carved out of it in 2014, given Andhra Pradesh is to go to polls next year and opposition parties are upping the ante against the "deprivation."
