Re-install Nehru’s statue, PCC demands Kakinada civic body

KAKINADA: Pradesh Congress Committee president Sake Sailajanath demanded that the Kakinada Municipal Corporation (KMC) re-install the statue of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru at Balaji Cheruvu centre here.

Party activists, led by Sailajanath and former Union minister M.M. Pallam Raju staged a dharna at Balajicheruvu centre. Sailajanath said that KMC had shown the government site as a private site and had removed the statue. He said that the ruling party should re-install the statue at the same place by purchasing the private site. He said that if necessary, the Congress party would give some part of the amount to the Corporation. He warned the government of organising satyagrahas till the statue was back in its place.

He said that during the YSRC rule, there was no safety to the people in particular middle class sections. He demanded the government to order probe into the attacks on temples.

Pallam Raju said that the ruling party is threatening and creating flutters in a peaceful city like Kakinada. He said that removing statues of national leaders was ‘a heinous crime’. He said that Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy should respond immediately and have the statue re-installed at the same place.

Speaking about Divis Pharma Unit in Thondangi mandal, Pallam Raju said that when he was a Union minister, he had discussed with the then chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy about establishing industries in the proposed special corridor, compensation, employment to locals, pollution problems and other issues. He said that the governments were not clearing doubts, but politicising the issues. He demanded the government should lift cases against Divis victims and agitators.