Resolve IKP Animators' Issue, Demands YSR Congress

Demanding that the TDP Government resolve the issue of the Indira Kranthi Pathakam (IKP) animators, who have been on strike for the past two months demanding their pay, the YSR Congress said that it would extend all support to the women's groups, and said that the State had been ignoring the DWACRA and Anganwadi groups as well.

"Over 30,000 IKP animators are on strike for the past two months as their salaries have not been paid for the past 15 months, and a group of animators, mostly women, tried to attempt mass suicide at Visakhapatnam as their monthly salary of Rs 2,000 was due from the government. It is sheer arrogance on part of Chandrababu Naidu, who promised to regularize all IKP animators and absorb them into the Government after coming to power, but has been talking in a very demeaning way after assuming office, insulting the IKP animators, DWACRA women and Anganwadi workers," Party spokesperson Vasireddy Padma told reporters on Saturday.

Naidu had promised to give one job per family, failing which a stipend of Rs 2,000 would be paid, but neither of the promises had been honoured, and the IKP animators had been left in the lurch, with their plight being a cry in the wilderness, she alleged.

"Instead of clearing their dues, the TDP is trying to politicize the issue, and is levelling allegations that some political parties are behind the agitation of the IKP animators. Our support will be there for the animators or for any section of people who are bearing the brunt of the TDP's anti-people policies, and the TDP should look at the issue in a humanitarian manner and should not politicize it," Padma said.

Criticising "the TDP leader from Ananthapuram who had moved from the Congress and runs a travel agency" for his remarks on YSR Congress chief Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, Padma said that that was the leader that had surrendered to Chandrababu Naidu after one of his buses was involved in an accident in which over 40 persons were charred to death. (INN)