Members of the Uttarandhra Charcha Vedika (UCV), led by former Minister Konathala Ramakrishna, have embarked on the ‘Janaghosha yatra’ demanding an announcement on the new railway zone with Visakhapatnam as headquarters, granting of Special Category Status (SCS) to A.P. and special package to the backward districts, among other things.

A large number of police personnel, including those from the Railway Protection Force (RPF), were deployed on the Gnanapuram side of the railway station here on Sunday as UCV leaders, as also leaders and activists of the CPI and the JSP, gathered in large numbers in support of Mr. Ramakrishna’s yatra.

Over 100 UCV activists boarded the AP Express to leave for New Delhi as part of the yatra.

Addressing the gathering, Mr. Ramakrishna described the yatra as the last-ditch effort to press for the implementation of the promises made in the A.P. Reorganisation Act.

The Modi government should at least now declare the new railway zone and implement the promises made in the Act and make adequate budgetary allocations for the same in the vote-on-account budget.

The joint fact-finding committee, constituted by the JSP, had said that the Centre had to give ₹85,000 crore to the State. The committee was an apolitical one, and the Centre should at least honour its findings, he said.

“When the Centre could amend the Constitution in just a couple of days to provide 10% reservation to the economically weaker sections, why can’t it honour the commitments made in the Reorganisation Act?” he asked.

A seminar would be organised at A.P. Bhavan in New Delhi, he said, and added that the MPs from Andhra Pradesh would be invited to deliberate on the issues and later bring them up for discussion in Parliament.

‘Throw BJP in the Bay’

CPI State assistant secretary J.V. Satyanarayana Murthy called upon the people to “throw the BJP in the Bay of Bengal” in the elections for failing to honour the promises made to the State. He demanded that the Centre announce the new railway zone immediately.

CPI leaders J.V. Prabhakar, J.D. Naidu, A. Vimala, Rajana Dora Babu, Sk. Rehaman, K. Lakshmana Rao and B. Prashant were among those who were present.

Earlier, the CPI workers took out a rally from the party office at Allipuram to the railway station in support of the yatra.