The ‘leniency’ of our political leaders is emboldening bureaucrats to indulge in ‘loose talk’, opined Communist Party of India (Marxist) State secretariat member Ch. Narasinga Rao condemning the reported statement of A.K. Mittal, Chairman Railway Board (CRB) on the railway zone.
Mr. Mittal, who is presently on a tour in Visakhapatnam, reportedly asked the MPs on the need for a new zone in AP when the railways were doing everything for AP when Visakhapatnam MP Kambhampati Haribabu and Anakapalle MP Muttamsetti Srinivasa Rao sought new zone with headquarters in Visakhapatnam. The CPI(M) leader said: “The CRBs question was like questioning the validity of the AP Re-organisation Act. Mr. Haribabu had won the election on the promise of getting the new rail zone with headquarters in Visakhapatnam.”
Mr. Haribabu, who is also State president of BJP, should pressurise party president Amit Shah and ensure that he takes up the issue with the Prime Minister. On the recent statement of Rayapati Sambasiva Rao, MP, raking up the issue of Odisha’s objection to the new zone, the CPI(M) leader said that the TDP leaders were contradicting the assurance given by Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu that Visakhapatnam was the obvious choice of the new zone headquarters.
He alleged that this was nothing but a drama by the TDP leadership to ‘confuse the people’. He called for a united struggle by all political parties, people’s organisations and NGOs till the demand was achieved.
CPI State assistant secretary J.V.S.N. Murthy felt that our MPs should have protested against the CRB’s statement. Quoting official statistics, he said that while there was 33 km of railway lines for every 100 km in Tamil Nadu, it was a mere 17 km in the then combined AP, eight years ago.
The East Coast Railway (ECoR) had neglected the regions in Andhra Pradesh under its jurisdiction despite getting nearly half of its revenue from Waltair Division.
Protest plan
YSR Congress district president Gudiwada Amarnadh said that the party was planning to hold a protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi during Parliament session in June. BJP leaders would be stopped from attending the BJP national executive meeting scheduled to be held in Vizag on July 14 and 15, if no announcement was made by then.
