Oppn walkout over 'power shortage'

Hyderabad, Sep 5 (UNI) Members of the Opposition Telugu Desam Party, Telangana Rashtra Samiti, Communist Party of India, CPI(Marxist), CPI(ML) New Democracy and the Bharatiya Janata Party today staged a walkout in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly to protest ''shortage of power'' in the State.

Dissatisified with Energy Minister Mohd Ali Shabeer's reply to a question on power situation, Leader of Opposition N Chandrababu Naidu led his party colleagues out of the House after alleging the government had failed to supply adequate power to farmers and other sections of people.

In contrast, 5,600 MW of power generation capacity was added during the TDP Regime which also strengthened the power sector by introducing reforms and ensured there was no power cut, he claimed.

Leading his CPI members out of the House, Floor Leader Ch Venkata Reddy contended farmers were suffering due to transformer failure and shortage of technical staff.

CPI(M) Floor Leader N Narasimaiah found fault with the State Government for not persuading the Centre to ensure early supply of gas by oil major Reliance.

All India Majilis-E-Itihadul Muslimeen Floor Leader Akbaruddin Owaisi also registered his party's protest over ''power cut'' in the state.

UNI SM GM MIR HT1646