Several civil society activists on Monday called upon people to launch a united struggle against an ‘undeclared Emergency.’
Speaking at a meeting organised at Gandhi statue near GVMC by Movement for People-Centred Development (MPCD) to mark the anniversary of Emergency declared in 1975, film actor and director R. Narayana Murthy said under the garb of development, the authorities were giving away valuable lands to capitalists, corporates and industrialists displacing thousands of small and marginal farmers, fishermen and weaker sections.
Earlier, activists from struggle committees against power and alumina plants and other projects took out a rally from the railway station to the meeting venue.
CPI district secretary J.V. Satyanarayana Murthy, APCLC district president Sriram Murthy, MPCD members K.S. Chalam, M. Lakshmi, J.V. Ratnam, Gurram Vijay Kumar, J.V. Chalapathi Rao, and J.V.S.N. Murthy spoke. Paryavarana Parirakshana Samiti president Y. Krishna Murthy presided.
MPCD convener K. Babu Rao said the people should be treated as stakeholders in any development project. Retired agriculture professor K.R. Choudhary regretted destruction of agriculture lands by acquiring them by force and using them for setting up Special Economic Zones and Free Trade Zones. POW State president V. Sandhya alleged that the State was now being run by mafias.
