Karimnagar: Villagers stage rasta-roko against merger with municipal corporation

Irrespective of political affiliations, leaders of all political parties, farmers, agriculture and MGNREGA labourers and others participated in the protest.

Karimnagar: People from Durshad and Gopalpur on Monday staged a rasta-roko on the Rajiv Rahadari at Durshad demanding officials to withdraw the proposal to merge their villages in Karimnagar Municipal Corporation.

Irrespective of political affiliations, leaders of all political parties, farmers, agriculture and MGNREGA labourers and others participated in the protest. They raised slogans demanding the authorities to withdraw the proposal. They said Durshad and Gopalpur were completely agriculture-based villages. Farm labourers and MGNREGA workers would lose employment if their villages were merged with the corporation.

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Big corporate companies would enter villages and grab their lands forcefully. Moreover, the percentage of taxes would also be increased if the villages were merged into the corporation, they said.

In 2019, officials had tried to merge villages with the corporation but withdrew the proposal with the interference of local MLA and the then minister Gangula Kamalakar. They met Kamalakar and requested him for non-merger of villages in MCK.

They said Transport and BC Welfare Minister Ponnam Prabhakar, who had developed a grudge against them as he was defeated in the 2018 elections in Karimnagar assembly constituency, was trying to take revenge on villages by merging them with the corporation. The villagers have decided to meet the Minister and Collector and request them to withdraw the merger proposal.

The protest was withdrawn later.