Leftists take out rallies against power cuts

Anantapur: District Communist Party of India (CPI) Secretary D. Jagadish said that the leftist parties would continue with their agitations and intensify them till the government withdraws the hike in power tariff. Showing solidarity with the 10 leftist parties, who launched indefinite strikes in Hyderabad on Saturday protesting against the frequent power cuts and raising the power tariff, activists belonging to the five leftist parties like the CPI, CPI (M), CPI (ML), and New Democracy took out a huge rally on two wheelers in Anantapur town on Sunday. They were extending a moral support to the indefinite strikes. Speaking to the media here on the occasion, district CPI and CPI (M) secretaries D Jagadish and Obula Konda Reddy blamed the Congress government for pushing the State into a power crisis. They said that prior to 2004, during the Telugu Desam regime, there was surplus power in the State and people, especially the farmers, were enjoying uninterrupted power supply. They lashed out at the Congress leaders for hoodwinking the farmers by making false promises that they would supply them electricity free of cost. After coming to power, the farmers were ditched, they said. Jagadish said that when the late YS Rajasekhara Reddy was the chief minister, he supplied seven hours of power to the farmers, his successor K Rosaiah ensured five hours of power and now Kiran Kumar Reddy further reduced power supply to three hours only. How the farmers could cultivate their lands with only three hours of power supply, he asked. The Communist leaders said that the Congress had lost the moral right to remain in power as it had messed up with the power reforms. He said that the people of the State had to bear an additional financial burden of Rs 31,000 crore due to the hike in power tariff and they were facing untold hardships. He lamented that several industries in the State were on the verge of being shut down due to the power crisis and people were losing jobs. He appealed to the people to join the movement against the power tariff and make it a grand success. The huge rally started from the local Krishna Kala Mandir near the Peddagadiyaram junction and passed through the Gandhi bazaar, Srikantham circle and NTR circle. The party activists raised slogans against the government. The AITUC National committee member C Jafar, New Democracy secretary Prabhakar Reddy, CPI city secretary Narayana Swamy, and others participated in the rally.