TDP MP, MLAs hold protest in Secretariat

Hyderabad, January 11 : Several Telugu Desam Party leaders including Rajya Sabha MP CM Ramesh and many MLAs were arrested by the city police when they staged a protest in the State’s Secretariat against the proposed hike in power tariff.

The TDP leaders including Gali Muddukrishnamma Naidu, Ravula Chandrasekhar Reddy, Errabelli Dayakar Rao and others came to the Chief Minister’s Office to submit a memorandum on the issue. The TDP leaders were informed that Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy was away in East Godavari while Chief Secretary Minnie Mathew too was not present in the Secretariat at that time. However, they staged a sit-in-protest before the C-Block housing the CMO, while raising slogans demanding that the government drop the proposal to increase the power tariff.

Muddukrishnanma Naidu told reporters that the government has imposed a burden of over Rs 15,000 crore in the last few years by increasing the power tariff in various forms including Fuel Surcharge Adjustment. They alleged that while the common man was unable to pay the bill, several industrial have shut their operations leading to unemployment of thousands of workers.