Hyderabad: There are differences within Telangana Congress leaders over Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s decision on allowing RTC employees to return to duty. While senior Congress MLC T. Jeevan Reddy criticised the CM, Congress MLA T. Jayaprakash ‘Jagga’ Reddy thanked Mr Rao for taking a good decision.
Speaking to reporters, the MLC alleged that the Chief Minister had provoked RTC employees into going on strike, as he was conspiring to increase ticket fares of the RTC.
Mr Jeevan Reddy said the strike was a diversionary tactic to increase RTC fares, which would help TSRTC earn an additional Rs 2.98 crore a day, or more than Rs 1,000 crore annually.
The MLC said Mr Rao had allowed RTC workers to rejoin duty as “Telangana biddalu (children)” after more than 50 days of strike. He could have said the same when the workers had served the strike notice.
“Who is responsible for the losses caused to RTC during the strike period,” he asked.
He held Mr Rao responsible for the deaths of RTC workers during the strike period.
Addressing a separate media conference, Mr Jagga Reddy thanked the Chief Minister for allowing RTC workers to return to work “KCR’s decision is good,” he remarked.
On the increase in RTC fares, Mr Jagga Reddy said if people oppose the fare hike, Congress will fight the state government on their behalf.
Tension prevailed at Gandhi Bhavan when police prevented hundreds of Youth Congress workers from going in a procession from Gandhi Bhavan to Pragati Bhavan as part of their “Telangana Bachao” programme. A large police contingent was deployed at the venue to prevent the procession from moving out. Police also made some preventive arrests to prevent any untoward incident.
