Bus Strike: Opposition Seeks Governor Intervention

The Telangana Opposition leaders today urged Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan to intervene in the RTC employees' strike issue and take steps to end it.

A delegation comprising Telangana TDP chief L Ramana, Telangana Jana Samiti President M Kodandaram, CPI State Secretary Chada Venkat Reddy, senior Congress leader and former minister J Geeta Reddy and BJP leader Mohan Reddy called on the Governor at Raj Bhavan and submitted a representation with their demands to her.

The leaders also urged her to take action against TSRTC in-charge MD Sunil Sharma for filing a "false" affidavit before the High Court levelling "baseless" allegations against them.

They informed the Governor that they would also meet the President and union ministers in this regard.

Addressing mediapersons later, Kodandaram alleged that there was no response from the State government even after the advice of the High Court to it to initiate parleys with the RTC unions on their demands.

He said that the High Court had asked the government to take back the employees and allow them to resume work whenever they wanted to, but KCR was defying the High Court.

He also alleged that IAS officer Sunil Sharma was trying to politicize the issue by levelling "baseless" allegations against the Opposition political parties.

TTDP president Ramana alleged that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had retracted on his promise of merging the corporation with the State government.

He, too, made allegations against IAS officer Sunil Sharma, and claimed that the latter was acting as an agent of the ruling party.

He said that the Opposition leaders had all requested the Governor to remove Sunil Sharma from his post.

He also demanded that the State government take back the 48,000 striking employees of the corporation and allow them to resume work.

Congress leader Geeta Reddy alleged that KCR was behaving like a dictator where the RTC employee strike was concerned.

She, too, said that they had all requested the Governor to take action against the IAS officer on the basis of his affidavit.

Chada Venkat Reddy said that it was distressing that there had been no reaction from the government even after the suicides of 28 RTC employees.

He said that most of the striking employees were facing financial problems as they did had not gotten their salaries for the last two months, and needed to be rescued immediately.