Vijayawada: Left parties to stage protests opposing Centre's policies

Vijayawada: The leaders of various Left parties who met here on Friday unanimously and decided to organise protest demonstrations from February 12 against the anti-people policies of the Central government.

The leaders of the Left parties from the CPI, the CPM, the CPI (ML-Liberation), the CPI (ML-New Democracy), the CPI (ML), the MCPI, the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI), the Forward Bloc and the RSP have chalked out an action plan in this regard.

The leaders at the meeting have decided to stage protest demonstrations throughout the State against the failure of the Centre in implementing the issues in AP Reorganisation Act and sanctioning the Special Category Status to AP.

Later addressing the media, CPM State secretary P Madhu said that the BJP government had failed to sanction steel plant in Kadapa during the last six years.

He said that the Left leaders opined that a massive agitation was needed to achieve Special Category Status and implementation of the AP Reorganisation Act. He deplored that allocation in the Budget to agriculture, industries, food, education and medical and health services had been drastically reduced.

"There was hardly any allocation to the rural employment programme and a drastic cut to the allocation to the medical and health sector," he said.

The Left leaders announced that a roundtable meeting would be organised on February 12 in Vijayawada on special status and assurances in AP Reorganisation Act 2014.

The meeting gave a call to activists to stage dharnas before the Collectorates throughout the State on February 17 in protest against the Central Budget.

They demanded implementation of mother tongue at the primary level.

CPI leader Ramakrishna said that the Centre was bringing NPR to implement NRC in the country. Stating that there were 21 questions in the NPR related to NRC, he appealed to the people not to answer the questions.

He demanded that the State government pass a resolution in the Assembly not to implement the NPR and NRC in the State. He appealed to the people to participate in the protest demonstrations in large numbers.