Parties focusing on Singareni workers' votes for 24 TS assembly seats

Adilabad: Political parties are wooing Singareni workers as the SCCL is spread over four erstwhile districts -- Khammam, Warangal, Adilabad, and Karimnagar -- and their votes would majorly influence the results of 24 assembly constituencies in poll-bound Telangana State.

Major political parties – the Congress, BJP, and BRS -- are keen on winning the hearts of these workers.

The BRS and BJP are engaged in a verbal fight against each other over the privatization of the Singareni and retrenchments in SCCL. The ruling BRS went one step ahead and claimed that Singareni would lay a bid for the Visaka steel plant if the central government sought to privatize VSP.

BRS alleged that the BJP-led central government attempted to privatise two SCCL coal mines. According to rough estimates, nearly 42,000 persons work in SCCL spread over four districts.  

During the election campaign in the coal belt areas, Chief Minister Chandrashekar Rao held the Congress responsible for giving a 49 per cent share of the SCCL to the central government and BJP for attempting to privatize two SCCL coal mines.

Meanwhile, Congress leaders claimed that the Congress government at the Centre saved SCCL from being declared sick, by giving Rs 600 crore in funds for its revival in the past.

Rao claimed that the BRS did recruitment for SCCL jobs, restored the (post-death) dependent jobs system, and hiked the Diwali and Dasara bonuses from the SCCL profit, which “increased” in the last nine years of the BRS government.

“The BRS government has recruited nearly 19,463 persons in the Singareni in the last nine years against a recruitment of only 6,400 persons before the formation of the Telangana state,” said Rao.

He said the state government was giving a Rs 10 lakh interest-free house loan and issued 22,000 pattas as per GO-76 to the houses constructed on the Singareni lands in the state.

Rao said the turnover has increased to Rs 33,000 from Rs 11,000 crore and profits to Rs 2,184 crore from Rs 419 crore. “Previously, only Rs 40 crore was paid as a bonus. This year, we have paid Rs 700 crore for Dasara festival.”

The added advantage to the BRS in the coal belt area is that its frontal organisation, the Telangana Boggugani Karmika Sangam (TBGKS), was elected twice in the elections held for the selection of a recognized trade union in SCCL.

At a recent Bellampalli meeting, TPCC president A. Revanth Reddy questioned the BRS government as to why they did not conduct elections for the recognized trade union in the SCCL and why they approached the high court against the elections.   

Singareni worker K Mallesh of Goleti in the Bellampalli Singareni area said the Congress, BJP, and BRS are trying to attract the Singareni workers. “Whoever wins our vote will form the next government.”