The KCR government has now been following the foot steps of Jayalalitha when it dismissed around 50,000 striking employees of TSRTC. it was the time when Jayalalitha had dismissed around 1.75 Lakh of government employees when they were on an indefinite strike.
The agitated employees of around 10 trade unions presented the list of 26 demands to the government and were boycotting work since the weekend. Major demand was the merger the of the corporation with the state government.
Other demands included having a salary hike that was pending since last two years, filling of vacant vacancies. Offering child care holidays for women employees, purchasing new buses and allowing parcel services in addition of plying of buses.
The government acted on its prior warning to the employees to return to work by 6 PM on Saturday otherwise they would be sacked to work. Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) took the decision of dismissing all the employees who kept away from work even after warning.
In a statement to the media KCR had condemned the strike by saying that people were badly affected by the strike and states like Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chjatisgarh, Manipur had no RTC's. There had been widespread dissatisfaction on social media over the issue.
KCR seems to have repeated what former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa had done in 2003. In that historic move, she had dismissed more than one lakh employees who were on strike. In the ensuing elections in 2004, her party at that time had lost all 39 MP seats.