Vijayawada: CPI demands rollback of price hike

Vijayawada: Heavily coming down on the Jagan Mohan Reddy administration for 'murdering the democracy' in the state, CPI state secretary K Ramakrishna said here on Wednesday that the state is not the fiefdom of Jagan. He wondered whether Ambedkar's Constitution is being implemented in the state or not.

Addressing the media at Dasari Bhavan, Ramakrishna said that every citizen has a right to protest in a democratic country. He recalled that it was the right of people to stage protest at the time of Parliament or Assembly session. "The police arrested the employees when they demanded removal of CPS which is also against the democratic principles," he said.

The police arrested the Left leaders in Vijayawada stating that it would disturb peace and order at Velagapudi, he remarked.

The people will stage protest at Jantar Mantar in Delhi during the Parliament session.

Ramakrishna appealed to the people to raise their voice on the high prices when the YCP leaders come to their houses during the Gadapa Gadapaku programme. He said that all the charges, taxes and the prices of essential commodities have gone up and the price of petrol and diesel is higher than the neighbouring states.

Referring to the hike in the power tariff, the CPI leader said that the government was purchasing the power at higher price in collusion with Adani. When the power is available for Rs 1.99 per unit in the market, the government is buying at the rate of Rs 2.49 from Adani company. This resulted in the burden of Rs 22,500 crore on people.

He alleged that the Jagan government is planning to abolish free power supply to the farmers and the farmers associations are planning to launch a massive agitation against it. The CPI leader said that the government is stating that if metres are installed to the agricultural pumps, the power consumption will decrease but in reality, government is hoodwinking the public to increase the tariff. Leaders of all the Left parties would meet on May 15 to decide the future course of action against the high prices.

CPI state assistant secretary JV Satyanarayana Murthy and state executive member Akkineni Vanaja were also present.