Around 3 a.m. in the morning police forcibly shifted TDP leader and former MLA Palla Srinivas who was on a hunger strike in protest against privatization of the steel plant ahead of Chandrababu Naidu’s visit to the protest site. On 15 February evening the police had asked his family to shift him to the hospital but the TDP leader refused to budge.
(Photo: IANS)
Chief minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy will hold discussions with the various trade unions to chalk out a strategy to stop the privatisation of the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), popularly known as the Vizag Steel Plant and also adopt a resolution in the Assembly opposing the Centre’s move go for 100 per cent disinvestment of the public sector unit.
The CM will be in Vizag tomorrow to attend a religious programme. The announcement came on a day when former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu challenged Reddy to save the steel plant or quit even as the state government moved swiftly to deny him a chance to score politically over the issue.
Around 3 a.m. in the morning police forcibly shifted TDP leader and former MLA Palla Srinivas who was on a hunger strike in protest against privatization of the steel plant ahead of Chandrababu Naidu’s visit to the protest site. On 15 February evening the police had asked his family to shift him to the hospital but the TDP leader refused to budge.
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However, YSRCP chief whip in the Legislative Assembly G Srikanth Reddy said Mr Srinivas was shifted to the hospital on humanitarian grounds as the leader had just recovered from Covid-19. Later Naidu visited Srinivas at the hospital.
Meanwhile, to counter TDP and Chandrababu Naidu YSRC’s Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Sai Reddy will undertake a 25- km “Save Vizag Steel Plant” padayatra on 20 February in the city. Naidu lambasted the YSRCP government and the CM over the privatisation issue.
He accused the ruling party of going for real estate business referring to 22,000 acres of land belonging to the steel plant instead of industrial development and stealing the very “soul” of the steel city by the privatisation move. He slammed the YSRCP MP’s upcoming padayatra saying that the MP should go to Delhi and stop the sale of steel plant.
He accused the YSRCP ministers of enacting false dramas to fool the people and accused Reddy of meeting the team from POSCO but failing to tell the people about the privatisation plans.
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