After a brief lull, thanks to cyclone Phailin, the Samaikyandhra agitation resumed after Dasara holidays, but on a low key, in Vijayawada on Thursday.
It appears that the second innings would not gather the steam that it had generated before the cyclone, as the main protagonist – the APNGOs have suspended the agitation for the time being.
The employees listed under the APNGO will join back duty from midnight or Friday morning, after almost 63 days of sustained agitation.
The other main parties such as APSRTC employees and the Corporation and Municipal employees have already joined back. The agitation was supposed to be restarted by the APNGOs from Thursday, but post meeting with the CM on Thursday at Hyderabad it has been suspended.
“The agitation will not suffer. We have only suspended it till the beginning of the Assembly session begins next time. Our focus is now on convincing the MLAs to defeat the ‘T’ bill in the Assembly. About 175 out 195 MLAs have already given their consent to support the Samaikyandhra idea,” said APNGOs JAC city secretary Ramesh.
The suspension of agitation was decided on Thursday evening, but the APNGOs closed down all the Central government offices such as BSNL, banks, Post Offices and Income Tax office, in the morning.
The BSNL employees also took out a rally supporting the cause of Samaikyandhra from Chuttugunta on Eluru Road to Benz Circle.
Employees from the Irrigation Department also staged a dharna near the Prakasam Barrage and blocked the traffic for a few minutes.
A few of the employees were taken into custody by the police and later released. Students from SRR and CVR Government Degree College, Sri Vidya College and Sri Chaitanya joined the Samaikyandhra Youth Force and Student JAC to take out protest march from SRR College to the BSNL Centre. The march was led by Student JAC Convenor Devineni Avinash.
Addressing the media, he said that the march was in protest against the Congress MPs and Ministers backtracking from the Samaikyandhra movement.
“They are towing the Congress high command line and we are unhappy about it. We shall continue our agitation for Samaikyandhra and will intensify it from October 21, by conducting gate meetings at all colleges,” he said.
