The BJP government’s policy of the sale of PSUs to corporate groups, has extended to all sectors like aviation, railways and coal mines, and has thrown several workers out of their jobs, Visakha Ukku Parirakshana Porata Committee leaders Mantri Rajasekhar and D. Adinarayana have said.
They were addressing the workers, who are on a relay hunger strike, for the 255th day, demanding that the Centre revoke its decision on strategic sale of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) at Kurmannapalem, here, on Sunday.
They said that the Modi government has put up for sale 400 railway stations, 90 passenger trains, 1,400 km of railway tracks and 265 goods sheds in the country, and deplored the Centre's decision to sell 120 coal mines in the next four years. Already some States are facing electricity shortages. The BJP government has also failed to implement any of the assurances given to Andhra Pradesh in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, they said.
The Porata Committee leaders said that the abnormal hike in petroleum prices has led to a cascading effect, resulting in the prices of all essential commodities going up exorbitantly and appealed to all sections of the society to defeat the lopsided policies of the BJP government.
VSP representatives MSV Umamaheswara Rao, KVRK Raju, D. Narasinga Rao, Appalaraju, KV Satyanarayana, DSRC Murthy and A. Srinivas were among those who participated in the hunger strike on Sunday.