The city witnessed a slew of protests on various issues ranging from rise in price of electricity charges introduced by CESC to agnipath and scrapping of revised textbooks, on Friday.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) flayed the recent hike in power tariff announced by the Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation (CESC) and said that it was adding to the burden of the commoners.
The party members raised slogans condemning the hike and called for its rollback. The cost per unit of power consumed has been increased at a time when the economy was yet to fully recover from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and people were suffering from hike in prices of other essential commodities, according to the CPI(M). It said the price per unit has been progressively increased by ₹2.70 per unit between 2009 and 2022. The increase in commercial tariff is affecting the SSI units and will be forced to shut down, cautioned .Jagadish Surya, Secretary, district unit of the CPI(M).
The party also accused the government of purchasing power at higher rates from private electricity producers and sought a probe into it.
The farmers under the banner of Samyukta Horata Karnataka expressed their ire over the Agnipath army recruitment scheme and flayed the Centre with playing with the security issues of the country. A majority of the soldiers are from farmers’ families and they are farmers in uniform and the Government which promised to implement One Rank One Pension scheme was now denying the soldiers both rank and pension under the new scheme, said the farmers.
The Karnataka Dalit Sangharsh Samithi members staged a demonstration urging the government to retain the school texts drafted when Baragur Ramachandrappa was the chairman of the textbook revision committee. The demand for bifurcation of Karnataka made by Minister Umesh Katti came under flak and members of Mysuru Kannada Vedike and they wanted the removal of Mr. Katti from the Cabinet.
