Tirupati: Former TDP MLA M Suguna flays government for cancellation of pensions

Tirupati: TDP leader and former MLA M Suguna criticised the government for cancellation of pensions to some thousands of poor people in the pilgrim city.

Speaking to media persons here on Thursday, Sugunamma said the social security pensions were cancelled to as many as 3500 poor in Tirupati Municipal Corporation limits after YSR Congress party came to power. The names of scores of aged people, widows and even physically challenged persons were deleted from the beneficiaries list, she said.

She said the cancellation of pensions is adding more to the miseries of the poor who were hit with the winding up of `Anna Canteen' immediately after YSRCP came to power. The newly appointed volunteers attached to `Ward Secretariats' in the city instead of helping to take the administration to the door steps of needy, are snatching away the benefits given to the poor in the name of surveys, the former MLA pointed out.

In Tirupati Corporation, the TDP government in its five year rule increased the number of pensions from 8,000 to 14,000, but the YSRCP government has been harming the poor by cancelling 3,500 pensions, she said.

She along with former TUDA chairman G Narasimha Yadav demanded the government restore pensions to all the eligible poor who were denied the benefit.