It was only four years ago that more than 48,000 Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) employees went on an indefinite strike for 52 days since October 5, demanding among other things, a merger of the corporation with the state transport department.
They were demanding that the employees and workers of the RTC be treated as state government employees on the lines of the decision taken by the Andhra Pradesh government headed by Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy.
KCR fired at the employees then and went to the extent of dismissing them from service. He declared that it was impossible to merge the RTC with the state government.
“We shall not take such a decision as long as this earth remains,” he told them firmly.
Stating that the cabinet had firmly decided against merging the RTC with the government, KCR had then said once the cabinet had taken a decision, nobody would be able to change it.
“If RTC is merged with the government, a similar demand would come from the employees of other corporations. There are 91 such corporations, small and big. They would also come up with similar demand showing the RTC as an example. If we reject them, they would go to the court and the same courts will find fault with us. So, there is no question of merging the RTC with the government,” he had asserted then.
But the same chief minister took the decision with a stroke of pen merging the RTC with the government.
The cabinet approved the decision without any discussion, soon after KCR proposed it. The same employees, who fumed at KCR, are now doing milk bath for his portraits.
Why is this sudden change in KCR’s mind?
The answer is simple: the elections to the state assembly are due in another three or four months.
And the Bharat Rashtra Samithi chief doesn’t want to let go any opportunity to pamper various sections of people, including RTC employees. He doesn’t want to lose even a single vote.
There is also a talk that the BRS leaders are eyeing the costly lands and other properties of the RTC in the city. As long as the RTC remains the corporation, KCR cannot do anything with such properties directly.
Once it is merged with the government, the latter will gain the right over the properties and KCR gets a free hand to do whatever he wants – either auction the lands or sell them outright to make money!
