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The Communist Party of India (Marxist) activists staged a protest against the Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, at Besant Road here on Thursday. They begged on the streets as a symbolic gesture to express their dissatisfaction over the budget.
CPI(M) State secretariat member Ch. Babu Rao and other leaders said that the Union government cheated Andhra Pradesh again by not mentioning a word about the projects and promises made in the AP Reorganisation Act. It did not make any mention of the special category status (SCS), bifurcation promises, capital and railway projects in the State.
Neither the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) national president N. Chandrababu Naidu nor the Jana Sena Party (JSP) utter a word on the injustice meted out by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “Now people have to take to the streets and question the Central government,” they said.
The budget did not show solutions to the infrastructure problems faced by the country. Except jugglery of words, the welfare of the common man was not taken care of. The Union government made a huge cut in the subsidies on food, fertilizers and domestic gas. The poor and farmers were hit below their belts. The fund allocation to MNREGS in rural areas was meagre, while the government did not take steps to introduce MNREGS in urban areas, they said.
Party State committee member D. Kasinath, leaders Boyi Satyababu, B. Ramana Rao, K. Durga Rao, Y. Subba Rao, and P. Krishna Murthy were among those present.
