Leaders of the Left parties who arrived in the bus jata in support of the striking municipal and panchayat raj sanitation workers, here on Wednesday, said that they would build another political movement in the days to come if the government failed to address the demands of the workers.
Addressing the gathering of the workers in front of the municipal corporation office the CPI(M) State secretary Tammineni Veerabhadram said the demands of the workers was genuine and easily solvable. He recalled that it was the Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao who promised to increase the salaries of sanitation workers before the elections and during the Telangana agitation.
Alleging that the Chief Minister was trying to drive a wedge among sanitation workers of the GHMC and the districts, he said it was very unfair on the part of Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao to threaten that military and police would be deployed if the workers continued their strike.
The CPI leader Gunda Mallesh said that if the government did not come forward and solve the demands of workers by the end of bus yatra on July 24 the Left parties would intensify the agitation by drumming up the support of other political parties and organisations. He said there was no opposition to the sanitation workers demands from the public and therefore they were bearing with the inconvenience.
TJAC’s plea
The Telangana JAC district chairman I. Gopal Sarma appealed to the government to immediately initiate steps to solve the genuine and long pending demands of the municipal and panchayat raj sanitation workers who were really instrument in keeping the environs and habitations neat and clean.
Expressing the JAC’s solidarity with the striking workers, he said the government should have increased the wages of the sanitation workers in districts too on a par with their counterparts in GHMC. Drawing a parallel to their wage position in the advanced and Western countries, he said, in fact, the sanitation workers in those countries were accorded high respect and given higher wages compared to other employees.
He expressed hope that good sense would prevail on the rulers look into the demands of sanitation workers very soon as their strike was going on at the cost of the hygienic conditions in the municipal towns. It would badly hamper the public health if they continued the strike further, he said.
Leaders plan to build another political movement if the government fails to address the demands of the workers
