The police broke the indefinite hunger strike launched by APCC President YS Sharmila within hours, demanding the reinstatement of 2,000 contract workers laid off at the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant. She reached the camp in Kurmannapalem directly from Visakhapatnam airport at 1.30 pm on Wednesday and started the indefinite hunger strike.
The police broke Sharmila’s hunger strike around 9 pm. The women police, led by DCP Mary Shanthi, forcibly moved Sharmila from the camp to Gajuwaka police station. She was forcibly taken to Hyderabad on a flight from Visakhapatnam to Hyderabad. Tension prevailed as the workers tried to stop her.
Congress party leaders and leaders of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant labor unions tried to prevent Sharmila’s arrest. At that time, a scuffle broke out. Congress party leaders deplored that she was arrested in the most brutal manner without considering that she was a woman. They described this as a conspiracy by the coalition government.
They were angry that they were trying to suppress the voice of the workers and beat them up. Earlier, Sharmila warned that the Congress party would not sit idle if the central government announces that the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant workers would be dismissed and privatized. She lamented that the plant, which had been profitable during the Congress regime, had gone into losses when the BJP government came to power.
Sharmila deplored that thousands of workers had fallen on the roads, but even then the coalition government was looking for trouble in the state. She asked Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and Deputy CM Pawan Kalyan why they are silent on the fate of Steel Plant employees? Why were they not stopping the workers from being laid off? She demanded that the coalition government should answer her.
She demanded that the 2,000 workers who were dismissed from their duties without any reason be immediately reinstated. She accused those who were given lands for the steel plant of being treated unfairly. Sharmila alleged that the Narendra Modi government is ready to sell this plant in the name of losses.
She was furious that the job cuts were part of this, conspiring to prevent the plant from getting raw materials, and preventing it from getting its own mine. She also accused that the central package of Rs 11,000 crore to benefit the plant was a big joke, as Rs 8,000 crore of that amount was withdrawn towards bank loans.
