All-party team soon, Manda Krishna urged to end fast

Madiga Reservation Porata Samith president Manda Krishna Madiga, who has undertaken an indefinite fast, has been asked to end his agitation immediately by the government.

Mr Krishna Madiga had on Sunday started his indefinite fast, demanding that Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy lead an all-party delegation to New Delhi to apply pressure on the Centre for discussions and tabling a Bill on categorisation of Scheduled Castes in Parliament.

Speaking to media persons at the Secretariat on Monday, Social Welfare Minister Pithani Satyanarayana, accompanied by Primary Education Minister S Sailajanath, appealed to the Madiga leader to give up the fast as an all-party delegation under the leadership of the Chief Minister would go to New Delhi soon.

Mr Satyanarayana revealed that he had already met KKR and informed him about the developments. KKR had then agreed to taking the all-party delegation to New Delhi. The Minister added that a date would be fixed by the Chief Minister. He emphasised that KKR has not spelt out any date so far.

Though the all-party team and the Chief Minister could meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi as desired by the Madiga leader, it was stated that the SC categorisation was time consuming as there were some Constitutional and legal problems involved in it.

Asked about specifying the date on which they would proceed, the Minister replied that it was the prerogative of the Chief Minister and that he could only wait for it.