Leaders of teachers’ organisations and labour unions vowing to back PDF candidates in the MLC elections, in Ongole on Sunday. Photo: Arrangement

Progressive Democratic Front (PDF) floor leader in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Council Vitapu Balasubrahmanyam has stressed the need for increasing the PDF’s numbers in the upper house so that the party would be able to raise public issues more forcefully.

Addressing the media on Sunday, he said the fight against the ‘anti-people’ YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) government should be intensified.

“It is unfortunate that the autocratic Jagan Mohan Reddy government is trying to suppress the agitations by teachers and other sections of people by using police force,” he said while attending a meeting of teachers’ organisations and labour unions in various sectors including banking, insurance, railways, postal and telecommunications.

People cutting across party lines should back the candidates of the PDF in the MLC elections from Graduates and Teachers constituencies going by the performance of the PDF MLCs in the Legislative Council., he said.

Andhra Pradesh United Teachers Federation (APUTF) State secretary K.S.S. Prasad, after a meeting to mobilise support for the PDF MLC candidates, said the federation would intensify its agitation demanding scrapping of the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS). ‘’We are not in favour of the Guaranteed Pension Scheme (GPS) proposed by the State government,” he said, adding that the State government should immediately implement the YSRCP’s poll promise of reverting to the Old Pension Scheme (OPS).

Seventy teachers organisations and labour unions, including the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) extended support to PDF MLC candidates Y. Venkateswara Reddy from the MLC Graduates constituency and P. Babu Reddy from the MLC Teachers constituency on the occasion.