Left parties have paid tributes to the three youths who died in the police firing at Basheerbagh in Hyderabad in 2000 as they attempted to lay siege to the Assembly building, protesting against power sector reforms imposed by the then TDP government.
On Monday, the Left party leaders paid floral tributes to the slain youths- Ramakrishna, Vishnuvardhan Reddy and Balaswamy in Vijayawada and hailed their sacrifices.
The Left parties urged the people to gear up for another agitation against the power policy of the State by taking inspiration from Basheer Bagh agitation. They gave a call to thwart the ‘anti-people’ policies of the State and Central governments.
The Basheerbagh firing incident reminds people about the World Bank-dictated power sector reforms in combined Andhra Pradesh during the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) rule. Because of the vehement resistance from the people to the power tariff hike during the TDP tenure then, none of the successive governments dared to hike the power tariff, they said.
Now, Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were burdening the people under the garb of true-up charges, tariff adjustment and other charges. In addition, the Jagan government was poised to fix the smart meters. The State and Central governments were indifferent to rising prices of essential commodities, petrol, diesel and domestic gas, they added.
CPIM State secretariat members Ch. Babu Rao, V. Umamaheswara Rao, Sitaram, B. Tulasi Das, NTR District secretary D.V. Krishna, State committee members D. Kaisnath and others were present.
