Congress Slams KCR For Disrupting Ponnam's Fast

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) President N Uttam Kumar Reddy accused the TRS government of suppressing all kinds of protests against its "wrong" policies and decisions.

"The TRS government is completely suppressing the people's right to express their demands or even register their protests against wrong policies, decisions and actions. The Constitution of India has guaranteed freedom of speech to all citizens. But Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao is running a dictatorial form of government disallowing all kind of protest against his rule," Reddy said in a meeting called to condemn the arrest of former MP Ponnam Prabhakar in Karimnagar on Tuesday.

He said that Ponnam was on a hunger strike demanding the establishment of a medical college in Karimnagar as promised by the Chief Minister three years ago. However, instead of holding talks with the leader and giving a positive assurance, the CM got the police to storm the hunger strike camp and take the Congress leader and other activists into custody.

It was all especially disappointing since the Chief Minister had promised a medical college in Karimnagar, and all Ponnam was seeking was the fulfilling of the promise. Instead of having an apologetic attitude, KCR and the TRS government were going on the offensive and aggressively curbing all kinds of protest by the opposition parties and people, Reddy said.

The TPCC chief said that the TRS government had adopted a similar approach even when the Congress had wanted to hold a Chalo Sircilla agitation. Dalits, BCs and other innocent persons were subjected to third degree torture by the Sircilla police, but the government neither responded to the Congress party's demand for action against the guilty cops nor permitted the party, the main opposition party, to hold a protest. He said that even former Speaker of the Lok Sabha Meira Kumar, a prominent dalit and woman leader of the country, was not allowed to address a public meeting.

Reddy said that right from the shifting of Dharna Chowk to the arrest of Ponnam Prabhakar, the TRS government had kept violating democratic norms. "KCR does not come out of Pragathi Bhavan, and is completely inaccessible to the people. His cabinet ministers and ruling party legislators are not willing to hear the people's grievances. The common people are being subjected to brutal torture and being implicated in false cases when they are holding protests on their own, as happened in the cases of protests by chilli farmers in Khammam and by local villagers in Nerella village. Further, the government is simply not permitting the opposition parties to organise any kind of protests anywhere in the State. This is completely against the spirit of democracy," he said.

The TPCC chief said that the Chief Minister would not succeed in his attempts to suppress the voice of the common people, who would teach the TRS a fitting lesson in the next elections.

CLP deputy leader Jeevan Reddy echoed the same views - that the police disrupting Prabhakar's hunger strike was undemocratic, and that instead of disrupting the former MP's fast KCR should fulfill his promise of setting up a medical college in Karimnagar.