Hyderabad: A round table conference of political parties and NGOs decided on Sunday to build up public opinion against the decision of state government to construct new buildings for the Secretariat and state Assembly by wasting huge amount of public money and demolishing a heritage structure like Errum Manzil.
Representatives from the Congress, BJP, BC Welfare Association and several NGOs who attended the conference organised by former MP G. Vivek resolved to build pressure on government through protests and legal recourse.
Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the party would support NGOs and other organisations protesting against the demolition of Errum Manzil and the old Secretariat, apart from taking up several programmes by itself. He appealed to people to protest against wasting public money on the whims of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao.
Congress leaders Moha-mmed Ali Shabbir and A. Revanth Reddy said it was only through a collective struggle that they could stop the state government from going ahead with its decision.
BJP’s state unit president Dr K. Laxman said that it was his party that had put pressure on the Centre not to allot the Bison Polo Ground to state government for the construction of a new Secretariat. The BJP would not allow state government to demolish the buildings in the Secretariat complex which were built only 10 to 15 years ago.
Ms Anuradha Reddy from Intach-Hyderabad, an NGO, sought the support of political parties in their struggle to prevent the demolition of Errum Manzil. Supreme Court senior counsel S. Satyam Reddy recalled that state government had earlier admitted before the High Court that the buildings of the old secretariat were strong. BC Welfare Association president R. Krishnaiah demanded that state government build schools instead of wasting the money by constructing the new Secretariat and Assembly buildings.
