It is just five days to go for the declaration of results for the assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh and the fate of the ruling Telugu Desam Party, including its ministers and MLAs will be decided then.
Already, the ministers, including TDP president and chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu, have been become powerless due to enforcement of model code of conduct. And their authority as ministers would be there only for name sake only till May 23.
But Andhra Pradesh civil supplies minister Prathipati Pulla Rao’s wife P Venkayamma still feels her husband is a powerful minister and she can wield influence using his authority.
But she had to face a humiliating experience at a toll plaza on Hyderabad-Guntur highway in Nalgonda district on Friday evening.
Venkayamma was travelling from Hyderabad to Guntur in the minister’s car which itself is a violation of rules as nobody else, except the minister should use the official car.
Her car was stopped at the toll plaza at Madgulapalli and the toll plaza employee asked her to pay the toll fee of Rs 56.
This got the minister’s wife irritated.
“How dare you stop the vehicle of a minister and ask me to pay the toll fee? The vehicle has a sticker of an MLA and is entitled to get a free passage at the toll plazas,” she shouted at the employee.
However, the toll plaza worker told her firmly that he would allow the MLA’s vehicle only if the MLA is travelling inside. If others travel by the same vehicle, there will be no free passage and they have to pay the toll fee.
“You may be a minister’s wife, but not a minister. So, you have to pay the fee,” he asserted.
He also pointed out that the validity of the “MLA” sticker had expired way back in December 2018.
But Venkayamma continued to argue with him for some time, but the toll plaza staff did not relent. They refused to allow her till she paid Rs 56. Having no other pay, she paid the money grumblingly.
She told the reporters later that she had never faced such a situation in any of the toll plazas during the travel, though she frequently travelled in the same car between Guntur and Hyderabad.
