Senior Congress leaders of Telangana, including former MP V. Hanumantha Rao and Mallu Ravi, on Tuesday lashed out at the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government for its move to ban protests outside Indira Park.
The leaders questioned the alleged presence of a large number of police personnel in civil dress and also about several TRS joining the walkers and staging their protest. They wondered how the walkers could stage a dharna when their demand was that all forms of protests by political parties and people’s organisations be stopped as it was interfering with their morning walks.
Mr. Hanumantha Rao made specific reference to the way the government treated farmers in Khammam by arresting and handcuffing them and also in Warangal when all they wanted was minimum support price for their produce.
“Farmers also lost lakhs of rupees that they spent to drill borewells and could not get water. Is this the way government should treat the problems of the farmers?” he asked.
Recalling Lal Bahadur Shastry’s slogan of ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’ Mr. Rao said the Telangana Congress leaders and cadres would fan out all over the State in general and specifically to Khammam and Warangal. “We will expose the ruling party’s double standards and prepare people to give a fitting reply in the next elections, he stated.
Mr. Mallu Ravi questioned the action of the police to different groups of people including political parties to stage their protests. “It is as if the ruling party has failed on all fronts — be it administration, law and order and farmers’ issues, to name a few,” he said.
Investors
On the much-touted TS-IPASS, the single window with which government claimed would give the necessary permissions within a week for investors to set up their units, Mr. Ravi said several irregularities were taking place in its implementation.
Many owners of existing units were transferring the ownership in the form of lease deeds to their relatives and benefiting from government’s VAT (Value Added Tax) exemption and on power tariff too. He said that in Adilabad district alone there were five cotton ginning mills whose owners were thus getting benefits.
