Opposition, TEA Support RTC Strike, October 19 Bandh

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) President and Nalgonda MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy directed the Congress cadres across the State to support the call for a Telangana Bandh on October 19 given by the TSRTC Employees' JAC.

Addressing a protest by RTC employees at the Kodad bus depot on Wednesday, Reddy blamed the TRS government for the present financial crisis in the TSRTC, and slammed Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao for holding the RTC employees accountable for the losses.

He said that the RTC was a profit-making organisation in united Andhra Pradesh under the Congress regimes, and had over 1.2 lakh employees and had entered the Guiness Book of World Records for purchasing 2,000 new buses every year. However, post-bifurcation, the TRS government had adopted wrong policies and had pushed the corporation into a huge crisis, he said.

The TPCC chief said that the RTC employees had played a major role in the formation of Telangana State. He said that it was due to the contribution of the RTC workers that statehood for Telangana became a reality and KCR became the Chief Minister. However, KCR rendered huge injustice to the employees by taking a U-turn on his original stand of merging the RTC with the State government. And now, instead of accepting the justified demands, KCR had declared the strike illegal and dismissed nearly 50,000 employees. By stating that employees were "self-dismissed", KCR had entered into "self-destruction" mode, Reddy remarked.

Reddy paid floral tributes to RTC driver Srinivas Reddy and conductor Surender Goud who committed suicides. On the occasion, he also appealed the RTC workers not to resort to any extreme step under any circumstances.

Other Opposition party leaders too extended their full support to the ongoing RTC employee strike. CPI leader Chada Venkat Reddy, CPM leader Tammineni Veerabhadram and TJS leader M Kodandaram were among the leaders who met the RTC JAC leaders today. They decided to give a call to the people to organize protests on a large scale when KCR participated in the Huzurnagar by-election campaign.

Meanwhile the Telangana Employees Association (TEA) also backed the RTC strike. Several leaders including TSRTC JAC Convenor Ashwatthama Reddy met the TEA leaders and requested them to join and support the protest, and the TEA leaders agreed. TEA president Sampath Kumar Swamy said that it was very unfortunate that two RTC workers had committed suicides, and gave a call for fighting for rights through protests rather than taking such drastic steps. Kumar said that the strike would be further intensified with other trade unions and teachers' unions joining the protest. He appealed to all of them to cooperate and join the bandh on October 19.