Youth Congress stages protest

The Karnataka Pradesh Youth Congress demanded cancellation of garbage tenders given to contractors and staged a protest on Friday.

They alleged that the contractors and a few elected representatives were hand-in-glove in garbage mafia. Members of the party said at present, the city had 80 dumping points and tonnes of garbage were not cleared on time.

Besides, the contractors demanded money from residents to collect garbage every day.

“Heaps of garbage has piled up at Sujatha Talkies and it has not been cleared for weeks. Today, we initiated a drive to clear the garbage with the help of BBMP officials. In this area alone, we can expect 30 trucks of garbage. From morning we have managed to clear 12 trucks. The BJP is sitting like a lame duck, so we had to take the initiative ourselves,” said Youth Congress President Manohar S.

Warning the BJP and contractors that there will be many protests in the coming days, Youth Congress Vice- President Promod S Said, “If garbage is not cleared within 24 hours, we will launch snap protests in front of their offices.”

PAID PROTESTORS

After three days of protest by the BBMP Employees Association with support from the civil and garbage contractors and pourakarmikas, support on the third day seemed to have cooled down.

As Mayor Venkatesh Murthy had “warned” a few contractors to cancel their licence if the pourakarmikas did not work, some of them were seen working on Friday.

As the strength of the protestors was becoming lean, some contractors got ‘paid’ protestors to support their cause. However, the protest was called off on Friday.