Uttam Directs Congress Cadre To Support RTC JAC’s Telangana Bandh

Hyderabad, October 16(Maxim News): Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) President and Nalgond MP Capt. N. Uttam Kumar Reddy has directly the Congress cadres across the State to support the Telangana Bandh call on October 19 given by RTC Employees JAC.

Addressing a protest by RTC employees at Kodad Bus Depot on Wednesday, Uttam Kumar Reddy blamed the TRS Government for present financial crisis in the TSRTC. He slammed Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao for accusing RTC employees for the losses. He said RTC was a profit making organisation in the united Andhra Pradesh under Congress regimes. He said the corporation had over 1.20 lakh employees and it entered into the Guiness Book of World Records for purchasing 2,000 new buses every year. It was counted among world’s largest public transport organisations. He said previous regimes had developed assets worth thousands of crore for RTC in the shape of land and other properties. However, post-bifurcation, TRS Government adopted wrong policies and pushed the RTC into huge crisis, he said.

Uttam Kumar Reddy said RTC was not given any incentives or exemptions. He said Telangana had the highest taxes on diesel and this had a negative impact on the RTC. He said despite losses, today RTC possess assets worth more than Rs. 50,000 crore. He alleged that the TRS Government wants to hand over those assets to private parties and therefore, it engineering and escalated the financial crisis. He said that the neglect by TRS Government could be understood from the fact that the corporation had no permanent Managing Director since the formation of Telangana State. He said this was noticed by the High Court which directed the State Government to appoint a full-fledged Managing Director.

The TPCC Chief said that the RTC employees had played a major role in the formation of Telangana State. He said it was due to the contribution of RTC workers that Telangana State became a reality and KCR became the Chief Ministers. However, he said KCR did huge injustice with the employees by taking a U-turn on his original stand of merging the RTC with the State Government. He said instead of accepting the justified demands, KCR declared the strike illegal and dismissed nearly 50,000 employees. By stating that employees were ‘self-dismissed’, KCR has entered into ‘self-destruction’ mode.

Uttam Kumar Reddy alleged that the controversial and confusing statements given by the Chief Minister and ministers drove some RTC employees to suicide while many died due to heart attack following their illegal dismissal from service. He said instead of expressing any sympathies over the deaths of RTC employees, TRS leaders ridiculed the strike and the Chief Minister maintained his dictatorial stand on the issue.

The Nalgona MP said that the Congress party would fully support the Telangana Bandh call given by RTC Employees JAC and all Congress workers would participate in it on October 21. He said people could teach a fitting lesson to KCR Government by defeating TRS in the Huzurnagar bye-elections to be held on October 21. He said that the Congress party was all set to retain the Huzurnagar seat with a huge majority.

Uttam Kumar Reddy also paid floral tributes to RTC driver Srinivas Reddy and conductor Surender Goud who committed suicide. On the occasion, he also appealed the RTC workers not to resort to any extreme step under any circumstances. (Maxim News)