Amaravati, Sep 19 (IANS) YSR Congress Party President and former Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday strongly condemned what he called the coalition government’s brutal suppression of peaceful protests held across Andhra Pradesh against the privatisation of government medical colleges.

Jagan Mohan Reddy took to X to question Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu’s intent in unleashing ‘lathi charges, arrests, house detentions, and police excesses’ on students, youth, and YSRCP cadres who were voicing the concerns of the people under the leadership of the party’s Youth and Student wings. He wanted to know whether democracy still exists in the state when the constitutionally guaranteed right to dissent is being trampled upon.

“Why is the government so intolerant of people raising their voice in defence of public health and medical education? Selling away government-built medical colleges — assets belonging to generations of people — to cronies and private interests is nothing short of betrayal. And when questioned, the government responds with brute force, even going so far as to allow attacks on media covering these protests. This is nothing but tyranny,” Jagan Mohan Reddy said.

He also highlighted that YSRCP MLCs, who staged protests outside the Assembly against privatisation, were subjected to police high-handedness. At the same time, YSRCP legislators, youth, and student leaders successfully organised peaceful agitations both inside the Legislative Council and at medical college campuses despite repression.

“Our fight is for the health security of the poor and the rights of students. Until the government withdraws its decision to privatise medical colleges, our struggle will only intensify,” he declared.

YS Jagan appreciated all those who participated in the protests, reaffirming the party’s unwavering stand to safeguard public health and educational opportunities for the poor and marginalised.

Earlier, YSRCP claimed that the state-wide ‘Chalo medical colleges’ programme was a grand success.

Former minister Vidadala Rajini said, despite all the police restrictions, people responded in large numbers and gathered at the 17 medical colleges, five fully functional and the rest at various stages of completion.

They visited all the places where the medical colleges were initiated by the previous government led by YS Jagan to tell the people loud and clear about the privatisation move of the coalition government.

She said that Chandrababu could not bring even a single medical college in all his terms put together, while YS Jagan, in his five-year term, initiated 17 government medical colleges.

People gathered in large numbers to protest and demanded the rollback of the privatisation move.

Police placed heavy restrictions and put leaders under house arrest, and in Palnadu, their high-handedness was in the open, she said.

–IANS

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