VIJAYAWADA: The Congress will stage silent protests in front of the statues of Mahatma Gandhi on Republic Day demanding that Special Category Status (SCS) be given for Andhra Pradesh.
APCC president N. Raghuveera Reddy has appealed to all celebreties, actors and intelligentsia to participate in the protest.
“The Congress has been agitating in different ways for the past two years for the SCS,” he said, and added that gross injustice had been done to Andhra Pradesh by the BJP and the TDP.
At the time of bifurcation, BJP leaders had argued in Parliament that granting of SCS for five years, as proposed in the A.P. Re-Organisation Act, would not be sufficient and that it should be increased to 10 years. The TDP leaders said even 10 years was not sufficient and that SCS should be granted for 15 years. Now these two parties were not doing anything though they were in power, he said.
Mr. Raghuveera Reddy said the Congress, though not in power, had succeeded in putting SCS top on the agenda in the State. The party had been working with the slogan that SCS was the birth right of the people of the State.
Mr. Raghuveera Reddy asked people, cutting across party lines, to participate in the protest by wearing black badges and holding national flags in front of the statues of Mahatma Gandhi in their neighbourhood.
He called for a silent protest and reiterated that the Congress would extend support to any party or group agitating for SCS. The future of the youth and their careers were linked to granting of SCS, he said.
