Date:28/11/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/11/28/stories/2007112858880100.htm

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Disabled end stir amid high drama

Special Correspondent

Chief Minister’s assurance on calling all-party meeting on December 2

—Photo: G. Krishnaswamy

SUICIDE THREAT: Physically-challenged protesters threatening to drink polluted water from a pond at Basheerbagh in Hyderabad on Tuesday.

HYDERABAD: After spending the night staging a sit-in near Babu Jagjivan Ram’s statue at Basheerbagh here, disabled persons called off their stir on Tuesday afternoon amid high drama following an assurance by Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy to convene an all-party meeting on December 2 to discuss their demands. Tension mounted at the camp in the morning after the arrival of two Ministers N. Rajyalakshmi (Disabled Welfare) and M. Mukesh (Backward Classes Welfare) and Hyderabad Collector R. V. Chandravadan, to mediate with Manda Krishna, president of Madiga Reservation Porata Samithi (MRPS), who is leading the stir.

On seeing the Ministers, some disabled persons doused themselves with kerosene and threatened to immolate themselves. Some of it spilled on the Ministers and the Collector who beat a quick retreat as the agitators said they were unwilling to hold talks unless the Government agreed to enhance the monthly pension for the disabled from Rs. 200 to Rs 1,500 and provide seven per cent reservation in employment and education against three per cent now.

Ms. Rajyalakshmi told reporters in the Secretariat that the agitators were “blackmailing” the Government by brandishing kerosene bottles. She said there was no need for an all-party meeting as demanded by the disabled as the onus for solving their problems lay with the Government.

An hour later, the Chief Minister, however, announced his decision to convene an all-party meeting on December 2 to discuss the problems of the disabled. The agitators immediately called off their stir. The Chief Minister said the Government was committed to the welfare of the disabled, citing enhancement of pension to them to Rs. 200 and removal of age bar in their case for sanction of the pension.