The Congress-affiliated Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) and the Communist Party of India (CPI)-affiliated All India Trade Union congress (AITUC) will jointly fight the recognised elections to the Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL) while the Telugu Desham Party’s (TDP) Telugu Nadu Trade Union Council (TNTUC) will extend its support in order to defeat the TRS affiliated Telangana Boggu Ghani Karmika Sangham (TGBKS).
A joint fight is the need of the hour to expose the TRS’s unfulfilled promises on dependent employment, separate medical college and regularisation of contract employees, said TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, Telangana TDP working president Revanth Reddy and CPI State secretary Chada Venkat Reddy at a press conference here.
Mr. Uttam Kumar said that the TRS-affiliated union won on false promises and riding on the Telangana sentiment prevailing at that time. But, the Chief Minister, K. Chandrasekhara Rao had failed to meet even a single promise made during the last union elections in 2012 when Telangana sentiment was at its peak.
After issuing a faulty G.O. on dependent employment that was struck down by the High Court the CM was now trying to ‘fool’ the employees again with false promises, he alleged.
Where is the medical college, where is the closure of open cast mines and where is the regularisation of contract employees promised by Mr. Rao, he asked. He said that Singareni elections had a direct bearing on 12 Assembly constituencies and indirectly on some others.
Mr. Revanth Reddy said that the former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu had made the employees stakeholders by giving them 10% of the profits generated by the SCCL while Mr. Rao had only given empty promises, he added.
He said that the CM and Nizamabad MP Kavita Kalvakuntla are now promising to speak to the Central Government on the dependent employment and what did they do all these years, he questioned
The State cannot be left to the whims and fancies of four people, he alleged and said that the unification of anti-TRS parties was must to send a strong message to the Chief Minister that he can not take people for granted. It was time the TRS-affiliated union was defeated to open the eyes of the Chief Minister, he said.
Mr. Venkata Reddy said that the united fight will expose the TRS and reminded that the combined votes of AITUC and INTUC were much higher than the TGBKS even when Telangana sentiment was high.
The TGBKS bagged 23,311 votes out of 60,247 polled while the AITUC-affiliated Singareni Collieries Workers Union polled 16,724 and the INTUC-affiliated Singareni Coal Miners Labour Union polled 12,077 votes.
The TPCC working president Bhatti Vikramarka, former Minister D. Sreedhar Babu, and former Whip Gandra Venkataramana Reddy were among those present at the conference.