Amidst attacks by suspected pro-Telangana elements, a large number of government employees from coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions congregated on Saturday for a meeting- Samaikya Rashtra Parirakshana Vedika - where speakers asked the Congress to rescind the move to bifurcate the state or face political consequences.
The meeting at the sprawling Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium here coincided with a bandh in Telangana, from where stray incidents of violence were reported. Addressing the gathering, APNGOs president P Ashok Babu said that they would intensify the agitation and even prepared to organise a ‘Million March’ in Hyderabad opposing the division of the state.
As per the High Court directions, the meeting started at 2 p.m and ended at 5.20 p.m. Only government employees with ID cards were allowed inside the LB Stadium. Ashok Babu, who chaired the meeting, said that their movement was a apolitical one. “I have no political ambitions,” he said. Listing out the losses being incurred by the Seemandhra districts, if the state was divided, he suggested the Centre for a health debate on resolving the issue.
He said that there were no guidelines about service conditions of around 40,000 Seemandhra employees working in Hyderabad. There were around six lakh government pensioners and there was no clarity about which government would pay their pension amounts. “Already pensioners filed cases in courts after the creation of three states like Chhattisgarh and others,” Ashok Babu said. He said that the employees were now under the umbrella of Zonal system.
“Once the state is divided, then the presidential orders will go and state will become a unit. This will create problems for employees in promotions,” Ashok Babu explained. The meeting did not adopt any resolutions. “Time will decide how long the present strike will continue,” Ashok Babu said. ‘’Our resolve is to have a unified state. Bifurcation is detrimental to everyone,” he said. He said they were not against Telangana people and they were only highlighting the United Andhra theory. Ashok Babu said that people of all the three regions had a right over Hyderabad.
“If the state is divided and Hyderabad is common capital for ten years, the Seemandhra employees working in Hyderabad could not register their protest against their government. We have to go to Guntur or Vijayawada to register our protest,” Ashok Babu added. RTC employees’ leader Chandrasekhara Reddy said the division would have a severe negative impact on state road transport corporation workers. If the state is divided the RTC should be taken over by the government. Already RTC was running with huge losses, once the state was divided the RTC in Seemandhra would have no other option but to close. Student leader Krishna Yadav said the Seemandhra students and unemployed youth would suffer a lot.
Wife, husband theory
Ashok Babu described Telangana and Seemandhra as wife and husband. Recalling late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s statement in 1956 in Nizamabad that innocent Telangana was married off with Andhra, Ashok Babu said that after 50 years of happy married life, the couple gave birth to a son Hyderabad, who was an IT employee. Now, the wife wants to separate from her husband and decided to take away her son. What would be the fate of the old and innocent husband, who spent his entire money on his wife.
Power staff to go on strike
Electricity employees’ leader Srinivas said that if the Centre did not take back its decision to divide the state, they would go on indefinite strike from September 12. He said that there were around 30,000 regular employees and around 20,000 contract employees working in power sector in Seemandhra region. He said all the employees in Genco, Transco and Discoms would go on strike. He wanted the people to decide whether they would require electricity or United Andhra Pradesh.
Telangana youth will not get one lakh jobs
Seemandhra Secretariat Employees Forum chairman U Murali Krishna said that the Telangana people would not get one lakh jobs as being told by Telangana politicians. The Telangana leaders were obstructing the construction of Polavaram project now itself. If the state was divided, the T-government would not allow the construction of Polavaram as the Telangana lands would be submerged under the project. He said that only chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy stood for United Andhra and wondered why the Seemandhra ministers were not following him.
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