VIJAYAWADA: BJP state chief Somu Veerraju has written an open letter to Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, demanding that the ‘controversial’ GO 217 be withdrawn immediately. He demanded that full fishing rights on canals, tanks and reservoirs be restored to fishermen societies and claimed that the BJP sees the move as a way to dilute the age-old societies system and hand it over to big and private players.
“It is clear that the GO will push the future of fishermen into darkness. This move may slowly result in the fishermen, who have taken it up generation after generation, moving out of the profession. The BJP suspects that the decision was taken to deliberately deny the rights of fisherfolk and give tanks, canals and other water bodies to big players and reduce the fishermen to coolies,” he alleged, in the letter written on Sunday.
Somu further shot a volley of questions as the chief minister, demanding answers on what led to the decision. He also demanded the CM to release a white paper on the assistance given to the fishermen community using Central funds and those of its own by the YSRC government in the last two years.