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Power tariff hike: Three AP Cong MLAs shifted to hospital

Three more fasting Congress legislators were on Monday rushed to hospital after their condition deteriorated as the 'fast unto death' agitation demanding rollback of hike in power tariff entered its fourth day.

Opposition parties intensified their agitation and launched relay hunger strikes in all the district headquarters and also resorted to 'rasta roko'.

Chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu had on Sunday ruled out any rollback.

Congress legislators Srinivas Reddy, M Hanumantha Rao and S Pitchi Reddy, whose blood pressure and sugar levels shot up, were rushed to the Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences where seventy-one-year-old Congress legislator J Ratnakar Rao, admitted on Sunday, was also undergoing treatment.

Meanwhile, relay hunger strikes in support of the 'fast unto death' agitation by 78 Congress, two Communist Party of India (Marxist) and one CPI-ML (New Democracy) legislators commenced in all the mandal and district headquarters, reports in Hyderabad said.

Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president M Satyanaryana Rao, CPI-M secretary B V Raghavulu and Communist Party of India state secretary S Sudhakar Reddy led the party workers in organising relay hunger strikes at various places.

The power tariff hike issue continued to rock the state assembly on Monday. In the absence of the Congress and Left parties, Majlis Ittehadul Muslimeen legislators took up the issue. They staged a walk-out after the state government refused to rollback the recent hike in power tariff.

As the House resumed its sitting, MIM member Akbaruddin Owaisi raised the issue saying the steep and unprecedented hike affected the common man and sought to the bring to the notice of Speaker K Pratibha Bharathi the fast unto death agitation by Congress and Left parties legislators.

Sporting black badges, the four MIM legislators, including its leader Asaduddin Owaisi, sprang to their feet and demanded suspension of the collection of power tariff till the House committee constituted by the government recently to study the issue submits its report.

Three MIM members stormed into the well of the house after members of the state cabinet refused to reply saying Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu had spelt out his stand on the issue last week.

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