Political conspiracy behind RTC strike: Errabelli Dayakar Rao

 Panchayat Raj Minister Errabelli Dayakar Rao on Sunday termed the RTC strike as a political conspiracy being fuelled by the Opposition parties to create instability in the State. He said both the BJP and Congress were misleading the RTC employees and workers, despite themselves not merging the RTCs in the respective States where they are in power.

Speaking to the media at TRS Legislative Party office here, Dayakar Rao said the TRS neither promised to merge the TSRTC with the State government in its election manifesto nor had any plans to privatise the corporation. But the Opposition parties were spreading false propaganda for their political mileage and also provoking the RTC staff to put up a fight against the State government.

“If the BJP and Congress had such commitment towards issues of RTC employees and workers, why did not they merge it with the State government in the past. They are also not implementing RTC merger with the respective State governments where they are in power. This is nothing but double standards to gain political mileage,” he



said.

The Panchayat Raj Minister dared the BJP leaders to convince Prime Minister Narendra Modi to announce that in States being ruled by the BJP, all the RTCs would be merged with the respective governments. He alleged that the BJP government at the Centre had earned about Rs 2.3 lakh crore revenue from the State over the past five years but did not release additional funds other than the devolution as per established norms.

Dayakar Rao said both the Congress and BJP were making combined efforts to ruin the corporation by holding protests in the name of TSRTC strike. He stated that Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao would keep his promise of turning the RTC into a profitable organisation. “The State government gave an unprecedented fitment of 44 per cent besides other benefits to the RTC staff in the past. In the last five years, the government allocated Rs 3,303 crore to strengthen the corporation. The previous governments allocated a meagre Rs 1,600 crore in undivided Andhra Pradesh,” he added.