Andhra Pradesh  Opposition is demanding that the Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy resign from the post, taking responsibility for the death of eight persons in Mudigonda village of Khammam district, on Saturday in police violence.
“He has no right to continue in office. This is a government that is feasting on the flesh and blood of the poor,” said CPM state Secretary B R Raghavulu at a massive rally organised by the Opposition parties in Hyderabad to protest against the Mudigonda violence.
“The killings are nothing but cold-blooded murders,” he said. Eight persons were killed when police used lathicharge and then opened fire on protesters, who were demanding land for the poor as part of the Left parties’ three-month-old agitation.
The demand for the CM’s resignation was voiced by the main Opposition leader N Chandrababu Naidu and was supported by Sitaram Yechury, CPM Politburo member, who visited Mudigonda on Sunday.
He, however, said there was no comparison with Nandigram violence where protesters had taken law into their hands and had attacked the police. He pointed out that out of 14 deaths in the Nandigram violence only eight were due to police firing.
Meanwhile, according to official sources here, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Mudigonda on Monday.
On Sunday, Khammam district observed a total bandh in protest against Mudigonda violence.
The bandh was called by the Left parties and was supported by all the Opposition parties.
The protesters moved the bodies of the six persons killed in police firing to Khammam town refusing to hand them over to the police for postmortem. 
The bodies of six victims, wrapped in red flags, were kept on a platform in front of the Collector’s office while relatives wailed, heaping abuse on the government’s failure .
Late on Sunday afternoon, however, they agreed to move the bodies to the hospital as they were decomposing.
Package
The government announced a package of measures including an exgratia compensation of Rs 5 lakh although they were demanding Rs 10 lakh.
It also said that the families of the dead would be given a house, a government job for a family member and free medical treatment. 
CPI Central Executive member Gurudas Dasgupta who met the media en route to Mudigonda indicated that Mudigonda would impact upon national political scenario considering that the CPI is a member of the UPA alliance. He described the killings as “murder” and condemned the ‘fascist’ way of the AP government in dealing with the justified demands of the poor.
The CPI along with the TDP said they would raise the issue in Parliament when it begins its monsoon session on August 10.
The Politburo of the CPM condemned the police firing, and called upon all its units across the country to protest against the “brutal police action”.
It said that the “genuine demands” of the people for house sites and land could not be suppressed by such “brutal display of force”. The two Left parties which have been conducting a bhu poratam (struggle for land) since May have been supported by as many as 195 civil society organisations.
The Congress government has claimed that it has so far distributed about 450,000 acres of land to about 300,000 beneficiaries as part of its programme to distribute land to the landless.
Meanwhile, Congress president  Sonia Gandhi has reportedly asked for a report on the Mudigonda firing.