Ongole: Centenary birth anniversary celebrations of Yallamanda Reddy held

Ongole: The country is being taken over by corporate powers said the CPI leaders at the Centenary birth anniversary celebrations of Gujjula Yallamanda Reddy, former national secretary of the Communist Party of India at Ongole on Sunday.

They said that it is high time that the democratic and secularist people should come together to protect the country from the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is in tandem with the owners of corporate companies and ruining the democratic and secular spirit in the public.

Gujjula Yallamanda Reddy is a well-known Communist leader from the Western Prakasam area and worked as MLA and MP in the early independence years. He rose to the position of national secretary with his commitment to serve the public and became one of the legends in the history of CPI.

His wife Gujjula Sarala Devi is one of the prominent leaders of the National Federation of Indian Women and the backbone for the activities of Yallamanda Reddy.

The Prakasam district unit of CPI organised the centenary birth anniversary of Yallamanda Reddy in Ongole in which the CPI national Secretary Binoy Viswam, CPI AP secretary K Ramakrishna, economic and political analyst Parakala Prabhakar, Yallamanada Reddy’s son and former senator at Germany Gujjula Ravindra, CPI AP executive committee members Jalli Wilson, Gujjula Eswaraiah, former MLC PJ Chandrasekhar Rao and others participated in the inaugural programme.

Speaking at the memorial lecture on ‘Indian Parliamentary Democracy- Need for Election Reforms and Proportional Representation,’ Binoy Viswam said that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi put the democratic system in the country at the mercy of some corporate forces.

He said it is disgusting to see organisations like RSS, which worked for the British then, claiming they are truly patriotic now. He said that the country is in much need of a proportionate representation system, to help the common people enter the legislative houses and strive to address public issues. He said that the system obstructs the political parties to give seats to the people who spend more money and collect thousands of crore rupees from corporate companies.

Parakala Prabhakar wished for a discussion-based democratic system in the country. He informed that the BJP has passed the three agriculture laws in the parliament in just three minutes, and even withdrew it in the same procedure without any discussion on what’s the need for. He said that the BJP, which has just 38 per cent of the vote share, is deciding the future of the public. He condemned the silence of the public over the demonetization, and the massacres in Manipur, Bihar, Gujarat and other states, increasing the indirect taxes share from 13 to 23 per cent by reducing the direct tax share from 23 to 15 per cent to help the wealthy, taking over the powers of Delhi government with a bill etc and advised them to start questioning to protect the democracy.

Ramakrishna observed that Narendra Modi has increased the debt burden on the country by Rs 100 lakh crore in just nine years, while all prime ministers preceding him made Rs 55 lakh crore. He said that Modi helped the corporate companies by giving a loan waiver, and destroyed the economic condition in the country. He said that Modi is inciting attacks on minorities by advising the people to say Jai Bhajarangabali before casting their vote. He said that BJP is ruining the multi-religion and multicultural portrait of the country by damaging the secular spirit. He said that the YSRCP government in the state has thrown the state back to 10 years in development, and announced that CPI is taking up a Bus Yatra from Visakhapatnam to Tirupati from August 17, with the campaign ‘Save the State- Save the Country’ and sought the support of the public to it.

The Bharatiya Khet Mazdoor Union president Ravula Venkaiah recollected his 50-year-long association with Yellamanda Reddy and their fight for the welfare of the farm workers. He said that though Yellamanda Reddy worked as an MLA three times and as an MP for one time, he couldn’t afford to construct his own house and lived like a true communist.