Police foil Left activists bid to storm Sub Collector's office

Vijayawada: Police foiled the attempts of the Left activists to storm the Sub Collector office here on Thursday. The Left parties, including the Communist Party of India (CPI) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) staged a protest at Sub-Collector office and tried to lay seige to the Collectorate here on Thursday demanding withdrawal of electricity surcharges and power cuts.They raised slogans against the government. The CPM city secretary Ch Babu Rao said that the people of the State were not in a position to bear the fresh burden of hike in power surcharges.A He wondered how the government had thought of mounting fresh burden on the people as they were already charged with Rs 32,000 crore burden earlier. He took strong exception to the attitude of the government in imposing four-hour power cut in the city against two-hour cut in other corporations of the State. He alleged that the government was not supplying sufficient gas and coal to the power generation companies in the public sector while extending benefits to private power generation companies.A The CPI city secretary Donepudi Shankar said that they would intensify the agitation against any move on the part of the government to impose fresh dose of electricity surcharges. He asked the people to come forward and oppose the government move. The government was harming the public sector power units by not supplying coal and gas and at the same time encouraging private power companies like GMR, LANCO and Sun Flower. He said that the government had come to power promising not to hike power tariff. The CPI-ML New Democracy leader K Rama, CPI-ML leader M Bhargavasri, former legislator Nasarvali and CPI leaders G Koteswara Rao, P Durga Bahavani, Navaneetam Sambasiva Rao, CPM leaders Donepudi Kasinath, VishnuVardhan and Ruben were also present.