A day after plumber Polepalli Venkateswarlu allegedly killed himself due to want of work in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district, opposition state party leaders from the Telegu Desam Party and the Jana Sena Party slammed the YSR-led government for the ongoing job crisis.
Before his death, Venkateswarlu had released a video in which he said that he was taking the extreme step as he was unable to look after his family. He was reportedly dependent on the construction sector for work. He allegedly hung himself to death on 28 October.
“For the past few months, there is no work and it is becoming difficult to sustain the family. Hence, I am ending my life,” he said in the clipping.
Venkateswarlu, in the video, hoped his elder brother and sister-in-law would look after his son. He also said he wanted his wife to marry again and live a happy life.
‘State Govt Should Wake Up Now’: Naidu
TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu posted the video on his Twitter handle and expressed anguish over such suicides.
“It is heart-wrenching to see workers commit suicide due to lack of work in the last five months as they are unable to see their families starve. The state government should wake up at least now and pay compensation to families that lost work,” the former Chief Minister said.
Kalyan Appeals To All Parties To Join March on Nov 3
TDP MLC DMV Prasad, MLA M Giri and other leaders visited Venkateswarlu’s house at Gorantla, consoled the family and offered Rs 2 lakh as relief.
The victims family alleged that the police remained indifferent when they sought to file a complaint on the suicide.
The TDP leaders claimed a mason had also committed suicide in Guntur district a couple of days ago due to paucity of work. “Construction activity has come to a standstill due to non-availability of sand. Lakhs of workers in the construction sector are suffering due to lack of work,” they said.
Jana Sena president Pawan Kalyan said suicides by construction workers have shaken his conscience.
Kalyan called for a march in Visakhapatnam on 3 November against the YSRC government’s failure to come to the rescue of construction workers.
“The BJP and the Left have already taken up the cause of workers. As responsible political parties, we all should join hands and fight for the lakhs of construction workers. I appeal to all parties to join our proposed march,” Kalyan said, reported The Indian Express.
Meanwhile, BJP state president Kanna Lakshminarayana also slammed the ruling party saying that YSRC has only focused on ‘painting buildings’.
YSRC Hits Back
Meanwhile YSRC MLA Jogi Ramesh said the government had not created the artificial dearth of sand.
“It has become very difficult to mine sand in artificial scarcity of sand. Will artificial scarcity bring a good reputation to the government?”Jogi Ramesh, YSRC MLA
He also sought the intervention of the Centre to resolve the crisis.
Last month, the Andhra Pradesh government had announced a new sand-mining policy.
The new policy aims at addressing the issues of indiscriminate mining of sand, black marketing, hoarding, skyrocketing sand prices, artificial supply shortage and cross-border transportation.
(With inputs from PTI, The Indian Express)
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