CM asks T leaders to introspect over strike

Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy has once again appealed to the Telangana employees to withdraw their strike and observe restrain till the Centre announces its decision on the separate statehood.

The Chief Minister also denied having sent any wrong reports on Telangana agitation to the Central Government as alleged by some Congress leaders recently. A group of public representatives from Mahaboobnagar district met the Chief Minister at his camp office here on Monday and the latter made clear that it was improper to think in terms of sending a wrong report to the centre thereby misleading the Central leadership.

The Chief Minister asked the leaders to go for introspection over the strike and arrive at a decision whether the strike was crippling the progress and causing inconvenience to the common man. Stating that most of the poor farmers were depending on the pump-sets and bore-wells for irrigation, the current strike was uncalled for as the power cuts imposed due to power shortage was mainly because of the strike by the Telangana staff.

Kiran Kumar Reddy pointed out that at a time when the standing crop was ready for yield, it was not proper to launch the agitation which will affect the kharif production and the poor farmers as well. In Hyderabad alone, there were as many as 24 lakhs small traders who were engaged in business for daily earnings and they were affected due to the strike.