Building mass movements to foil attempts by the BJP-led Central government to privatise the electricity distribution system and wrest the powers of the State electricity regulatory commission would be a befitting tribute to the martyrs of the Basheerbagh firing incident dating back to August 28, 2000, said CPI(M) State secretariat member P. Sudarshan Rao.
He was speaking at a meeting held here on Friday to mark the 20th anniversary of the Basheerbagh incident, in which three protesters of the anti-power tariff hike agitation were killed in police firing in Hyderabad during the then TDP’s regime in the erstwhile undivided Andhra Pradesh in the year 2000.
Earlier, Mr. Rao along with a host of other leaders of the Left parties paid floral tributes to the memorial of S. Ramakrishna, one of the three martyrs of the Basheerbagh firing incident, in the town.
He criticised the BJP dispensation at the Centre for allegedly trying to dilute the powers of the State electricity regulatory commissions and phase out subsidies in the power sector to benefit private companies at the cost of State-owned discoms in the name of reforms.
“The move will result in a steep hike in power tariff and gradual elimination of subsidies, thereby undermining the interests of power consumers, employees of the DISCOMs and the State as a whole,” he charged.
CPI State executive committee member B Hemantha Rao, the CPI (ML-ND) district secretary G Venkateshwarlu, the CPI (M) district secretary N Nageswara Rao, the CPI district secretary P Prasad and others were present.
In Hyderabad, a number of Left party leaders gathered at Basheerbagh to pay tributes to the victims of the police firing.
