Watch M. Kodandaram, the Chairman of the Telangana Joint Action Committee, This Week on Off Centre

by Suman Gupta

New Delhi, March 31, 2017: Even as the Telangana state CM K Chandrasekhar Rao is seen trying to woo the Gods with gold, the people who fought for the creation of Telangana, India’s 29th state have decided to take to the streets again. They claim that the CM and his government are turning a blind eye to the woes of the people and the goals that propelled the movement have not been met.  This week on Off Centre, Anuradha SenGupta spoke to M. Kodandaram, the Chairman of the Telangana Joint Action Committee who is deeply disappointed with K Chandrasekhar’s government’s performance and behavior.

According to Kodandaram, unemployment is the main reason of protest. He said, “Government should have allowed us to take out the rally highlighting the problems. We are asking for more jobs and the government should have accepted it as one of the priority items in the policy making that were not happening at all. Over 650 people committed suicide and most of the suicide letters stated that they are taking this step due to the unemployment”.

On being an activist he said that it was not an easy choice as he doesn’t have any power. He said that he cannot assure that everything would be solved and yet he is convincing people to join the stream telling them that the things would be better after they join it. He added that it was not easy to inflate the government from outside and it sometimes becomes frustrating too.

While lashing out at Chandrasekhar’s government he said, ‘‘The government is nervous and somehow it wants to suppress this activity. They do not want this rally to take place, in fact, if you read TRS manifesto, there is something which is interesting. They said that they would do anything to uphold the democratic atmosphere, so this is the violation of their rules’’.

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