The TEJAC boycotted crucial talks with a Group of Ministers, and announced their intent to go ahead with their plans of a strike.
The Telangana Employees' Joint Action Committee boycotted crucial talks with a Group of Ministers, and announced their intent to go ahead with their plans of a strike, the notice for which they said was already served.
The talks between the Group Of Ministers and the TEJAC were to take place on Friday.
In the first hour, the TEJAC leaders met the group of ministers at the D block in the Secretariat, but walked out claiming that the atmosphere was not congenial.
Later, speaking to media persons, TEJAC leader Swamy Gowd criticized the government for creating a situation which was not conducive for talks.
He announced that the TEJAC would go ahead with its plan of action, but gave the government 2 more days during which the employees would go on a pen-down strike and hold lunch-hour demonstrations.
Leaders heading JACs of Telangana employees, teachers, gazzetted officers and workers also set preconditions for talks, including: withdrawing the ESMA, the cancellation of about 8 other GOs plus GO 177, and the withdrawal of paramilitary forces deployed at government offices.
The leaders maintained that while the government on one hand invited them for talks and sought their cooperation, on the other hand, attempts were being made to invoke the ESMA to deal with them firmly.
Swamy Gowd and V Srinivasa Gowd, chairman and secretary general of the TEJAC, respectively, told newsmen that the government had no faith in employees, and that it was trying to intimidate them by issuing GOs 165/166 besides invoking ESMA against the employees.
They asserted that their demands were legal, constitutional and democratic. Slogans in support of Telangana were also raised.
Deputy Chief Minister C Damodar Rajanarasimha, Finance Minister Anam Ramnaryana Reddy, N Raguveera Reddy, Danam Nagender, Mukesh Gowd, and Dharmana Prasada Rao attended the meeting, while Civil Supplies Minister Duddilla Sridhar Babu and Backward Classes Minister Basavaraju Saraiah did not turn up for the meeting. (INN)