Yuvajana Shramika Rythu Congress President YS Jaganmohan Reddy and two other party leaders were detained from Visakhapatnam airport on Thursday, reported The Hindu. The police acted against them when Reddy tried to enter the city to participate in a candle light vigil in Vizag beach to seek special category status for Andhra Pradesh.

State Director General of Police (in-charge) Nanduri Sambasiva Rao said they had decided against allowing the demonstrations as they could comprise security in Visakhapatnam, which is hosting the Partnership Summit, The New Indian Express reported. Earlier in the day, the Andhra Pradesh Police had detained protestors in Visakhapatnam.

Opposition parties had urged the people of Andhra Pradesh to follow the example of Tamil Nadu’s united protest against the jallikattu ban to exert pressure on the Centre.

Apart from the YSR Congress, the agitation drew support on social media and was backed by Jana Sena too. The Jana Sena’s Pawan Kalyan took to Twitter to urge the state to allow peaceful protests. He posted several tweets using #APDemandsSpecialStatus. “Peaceful protest is their [protestors’] right. If they do not allow it now, they are creating unrest,” Kalyan said. Actors Sai Dharam Tej, Varun Tej, Sundeep Kishan, Sampoornesh Babu, S Sivaji and Nikhil Sidhartha also extended their support to the protest.

In September 2016, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced a special package for Andhra Pradesh after the Centre had said “constraints as per the 14th Finance Commission report” did not allow the Narendra Modi government to grant special category status to the state.

The previous month, former prime minister Manmohan Singh had appealed to the Centre to uphold the promise he made to Andhra Pradesh two years ago and grant special status to the state. Singh had said that on February 20, 2014, he had committed to granting special status to Andhra Pradesh, and that his Cabinet had also approved an ordinance on the matter. The implementation of the ordinance was delayed as the Model Code of Conducted had come into effect ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Singh had explained.

The demand for special status has been a top priority for the Andhra Pradesh government since the parent state was bifurcated into Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in June 2014.