TENSE MOMENTS: Municipal employees in a verbal duel with the police at EMC office on Tuesday.

ELURU: Striking municipal employees on Tuesday offered stiff resistance to attempts of the administration to deploy contract workers.

Eluru Municipal Corporation (EMC) authorities sought the help of the police in maintaining sanitation by hired workers, leading to tension in several parts.

There was a showdown between the employees and private workers at the EMC office when the protesters tried to break the police cordon and evacuate the contract workers from the revenue section.

Deputy Mayor Gampala Bramhavati and a section of corporators were engaged in a verbal duel with the protesters for not allowing the hired workers to carry out the job.

The district administration deployed some 70 sanitary workers from various gram panchayats around the city such as Denduluru, Bhimadole, Kovvali and Kaikaram for clearing garbage early in the morning so that the city would not feel the pinch of the State-wide strike launched by the Joint Action Committee from today.

Lunch packets

They were engaged to lift vegetable waste at the market and garbage in various divisions much before the strikers got to know about the alternative measures initiated by the administration. EMC officials supplied lunch packets to the hired workers.

Later, the protesters under the banner of various trade unions staged a dharna in front of the EMC office and took out a procession, condemning the attempts of the administration to "weaken" their strike.

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