Leaders of seven Left parties, Telugu Desam, Bharatiya Janata Party and YSRCP and Lok Satta met at the CPI(M) party office here on Saturday and decided to work together to make the State bandh on Tuesday against increase in power tariff hike a success.
CPI district secretary J.V. Satyanarayana Murthy addressing all-party leaders took a dig at Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy for labelling the Opposition leaders fighting for people’s cause as working for capitalists.
He said the government’s claim of lessening the burden on the common man by Rs 2,000 crore was shallow as the people are asked to bear the brunt of Rs.6,500 crore which was illogical and unjustified. The Opposition as a united voice is demanding that the government scrap the entire Rs.8,500 crore imposed on the power consumers. The government instead of reducing the power tariff has only come forward to bear the Rs. 2,000 crore in the form of subsidy as it is not in a position to dictate terms to AP Transco or its subsidiaries.
The small and medium scale industry is in doll drums and the government is implementing policies which suited the large scale power producers like Lanco, GVK and GMR etc.
He said the agitation would continue till the State government accepted their one point demand. Left party leaders G.V.M. Reddy, Y. Kondaiah, B. Ganga Rao and M. Pydiraju said the government was doing precious little to tap non-conventional energy sources like wind and solar energy.
BJP leaders B. Nagendra and P.V.N. Madhav said gas from the K.G. Basin was being supplied to companies outside the State while power projects running right under the nose of the oil and gas basin were getting a raw deal.
The leaders appealed to the general public to make the bandh a success.
