Grave injustice to AP in Union Budget: CPI

Vijayawada: The CPI came down heavily on the Central government for not fulfilling its assurances to the people of the country and said that the party activists would stage protest demonstrations in front of all Central government offices on February 10 throughout the country.

Addressing the media at Dasari Bhavan here on Sunday, the CPI State council secretary K Ramakrishna flayed the State and the Central governments for providing all favours to Gautham Adani. He demanded that the government book criminal cases against Adani for the alleged irregularities in his companies.

The CPI cadres would demand apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi while staging protest demonstrations.

Referring to the Union Budget, Ramakrishna said that the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman did not show any empathy towards people. "The Budget did not mention any major problems the country is facing including the skyrocketing prices of essential commodities. There was no mention of remedial measures to contain them," he said. The Modi Administration has miserably failed to solve the problems of farmers and the suicides of farmers have been continuing across the country. Instead of solving their problems, the subsidy on fertilisers was cut down by Rs 50,000 crore. There is no mention of remunerative price for cotton farmers.

The Central government has been doing grave injustice to Andhra Pradesh in the allotment of funds whereas it is freely allotting funds to the neighbouring Karnataka State in view of the forthcoming elections there. No funds were allotted for the development of Rayalaseema and North Andhra districts. There was no fund allocation for the Visakhapatnam railway zone, he said and wondered whether there was Visakha zone or not? The Central government had allocated Rs 10 crore this year as against the demand for Rs 170 crore for its development, he pointed out.

The CPI leader came down heavily on the State government stating that the Jagan administration did not build a single house for the poor. "How could the poor build the houses with Rs 1.80 lakh with the spiraling cost of sand, cement and iron?" He demanded Rs 5 lakh for the construction of houses.

Ramakrishna demanded allotment of Tidco houses to the poor immediately. CPI leaders P Harinadha Reddy and Vijayawada city secretary Koteswara Rao appealed to people to participate in the protest demonstration on Monday demanding allotment of Tidco houses across the State.