Hyderabad, September 26: Handlooms and Textiles Minister Dr P Shankar Rao on Sunday expressed his ire over the unilateral decisions being taken by Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy without taking the Cabinet into confidence.
Addressing a letter to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the Minister lashed out at the Chief Minister for announcing Rs 1 a kg rice scheme without informing Cabinet. “Such an important decision has to be taken in the Cabinet or the same has to be announced in the assembly sessions. But the Chief Minister has taken the decision without even consulting the concerned Civil Supplies Minister,” he complained to the Sonia Gandhi. “Such an important decision was taken without taking into confidence of his own cabinet members is most objectionable matter and several ministers and the Congress party legislators are very serious about this issue,” he claimed.
Dr Shankar Rao alleged that the Chief Minister provoking the Telangana leaders by making inflammatory speeches. “Our chief minister is using the divide and rule policy with the Telangana people and the leaders. He is luring the employees by way of paying double the salary if they withdraw from agitation,” he said while referring to Chief Minister’s instructions that non-striking employees be paid salaries on September 29 itself. He alleged that the Chief Minister instead of holding dialogue with employees’ leaders was provoking the Telangana sentiments.
Appealing to employees to withdraw the general strike as it has been causing lot of inconvenience, he expressed confidence that the Centre would announce its decision on Telangana state by Deepavali festival. He also appealed to RTC management to pay full salaries of employees apart from festival advance without taking into account the participation of employees in the general strike.
——Agencies