By IANS
Hyderabad : The Communist Party of India (CPI) Thursday launched a statewide agitation in Andhra Pradesh demanding residential sites and farmland for the poor.
The ally of the ruling Congress party thus joined the ongoing agitation by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and stepped up pressure on the state government.
Holding red flags, hundreds of CPI workers staged demonstrations at the offices of district collectors in all 23 districts.
About a dozen party workers were injured when police caned protesters at Visakhapatnam and Warangal.
CPI state committee secretary K. Narayana, Lok Sabha member S. Sudhakar Reddy and Rajya Sabha member Aziz Pasha were among the scores of party leaders and activists arrested at different places.
Narayana said the agitation would continue till the government accepts the demand of the Left parties to allot house sites to the poor and give agricultural land to them.
Under its 'bhooporatam' agitation, CPI-M activists have been symbolically grabbing government lands all over the state for the last two months, vacating the lands after a day.
Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, however, criticised the communist parties for launching the agitation when his government was distributing land among the poor and also allotting house sites.
Rajasekhara Reddy, who left for Delhi Thursday, told reporters that he would call on CPI-M general secretary Prakash Karat to urge him to persuade the party's state leadership to withdraw the agitation.