Congress calls for Pragathi Bhavan siege on October 21

Hyderabad: The Congress party has decided to lay siege to Pragathi Bhavan, official residence of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, on October 21 in support of striking TSRTC employees if the government does not come down by October 20.

This was announced by Malkajgiri MP A Revanth Reddy, former LOP in Legislative Council Mohammad Ali Shabbir, former Deputy Chief Minister Damodara Rajanarasimha and others at a press conference on Tuesday.

Earlier, these leaders held a meeting among themselves regarding the RTC employees strike which entered 11th day on Tuesday. The Congress leaders said that they would participate in all the agitational programmes of the RTC employees and called upon their sister organisations to extend support.

The Congress leaders have also announced full support to the bandh call given by RTC JAC on October 19. They demanded that the police file a suo motto case on the Chief Minister and three Ministers for inciting RTC employees to commit suicide.

Speaking at the press conference, Revanth Reddy said a case should be booked under Section 306 and 307 of IPC on Ministers Dayakar Rao, Ajay Kumar and Srinivas Yadav for abetting the suicides of RTC employees. He said the statements of the Ministers have hurt the employees.

Referring to the remarks of the Chief Minister that he would remove the thorn from the legs of employees if required, the MP said that the Chief Minister forgot this and was now removing their jobs.

Revanth said that the government was not concerned about the death of RTC employees, but it was quite serious about the death of dog at Pragathi Bhavan. The officials of Pragathi Bhavan went on to file a case on a doctor under a section which imposes five years imprisonment.

Former minister Shabbir Ali alleged that TRS leaders were giving contradictory and confusing statements on the RTC employees strike.

He said that at one side the Chief Minister has been insisting that more than 48,000 RTC employees were 'self-dismissed' and they were no more part of the corporation.