The Madiga Reservation Porata Samiti (MRPS) has postponed its proposed Telangana bandh on March 13 to ensure the conduct of Intermediate examination, paying heed to the State government’s request to defer the bandh call.
MRPS founder Manda Krishna Madiga said the future of students was equally important as that of categorisation of Scheduled Castes. “Instead of bandh, we will hold dharnas at mandal and district headquarters on the same day,” he said.
He said a request was made to the Board of Intermediate Education (BIE) to postpone the exam, but it expressed its inability given the constraints in conducting the examination again.
He demanded that the TRS government release the letters it had written to the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, seeking an appointment to discuss SC categorisation.
Mr. Krishna Madiga said they would decide on calling for a bandh again depending on the government’s attitude on SC categorisation.
Meanwhile, interacting with the media, Deputy Chief Minister Kadiyam Srihari asserted that the government was committed to categorise the Scheduled Castes and a unanimous resolution seeking the Centre’s nod for the same had been passed by the Legislature.
Mr. Srihari recalled that he had accompanied Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to New Delhi to handover the copy of the resolution to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as there was no response to several letters addressed to the Central government.
The government had even proposed to lead an all-party delegation to New Delhi to mount pressure on the Centre, but the visit could not materialise as the Prime Minister’s Office did not confirm an appointment with Mr. Modi.
In this backdrop, the State government had contemplated staging a dharna with MPs, MLAs and MLCs in New Delhi to draw the attention of the Central government to SC categorisation as well as enhancement of Muslim and ST reservation.
