CPI State secretary K. Ramakrishna has questioned the TDP’s about-turn over bauxite mining in the Agency area of the district. Addressing a public meeting at Chintapalli, he said the TDP had earlier supported the anti-bauxite mining struggles of the CPI, and wanted to know what made it change its stance now.
Demanding that the agreements relating to bauxite mining be cancelled, Mr. Ramakrishna said that the TDP would have to pay a heavy price if it went against the interests of girijans.
Former Union Ministers — Kishore Chandra Deo and Jairam Ramesh — had opposed the move to hand over mining to MNCs, he recalled.
Mr. Ramakrishna said that farmers and self-help group members, who believed in Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s election promise on waiver of loans, were aghast at the growing interest burden on their loans.
Party State assistant secretary J.V. Satyanarayana Murthy decried, what he called, the governments’ ploy to offer partnership to girijans in mining with a view to dividing them.
Estimating that the bauxite mining would earn an income of Rs.5 lakh crore, he said the government would earn a revenue of Rs.1,100 crore. The girijans’ share would be a mere Rs.300 crore, he added.
He took exception to the police trying to portray girijans fighting against bauxite mining as Maoists.
“The governments are failing to provide protected drinking water and medical care to the girijans, but are creating police outposts and laying roads for mining,” Mr. Satyanarayana Murthy said.
CPI National Council member and former MLA from Odisha Narayana Reddy, A.P. Girijana Samakhya State secretary Parasa Govind, CPI district secretary A.J. Stalin, assistant secretaries — Badugu Ramarajyam and Balepalli Venkataramana, and A.P. Mahila Samakhya district president and secretary — D. Bhimalamma and A. Vimala — participated.
