Hyderabad: Stating that Telangana farmers were facing a huge crisis, former TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, on Saturday claimed that only the Congress had the solution to the numerous problems being faced by the farming community.
Accusing the TRS government of ruining the lives of lakhs of farmers by neglecting their welfare, Uttam Kumar Reddy feared that the TRS government, in connivance with the BJP government, had destroyed the farming sector.
Uttam Kumar Reddy was addressing a series of meetings in different gram panchayats of Nalgonda Lok Sabha constituency as part of the party’s Rachabanda programme. The programme was formally launched in Dondapadu in Suryapet district after paying tributes to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on his 31st martyrdom day.
Uttam Kumar Reddy alleged that Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao had caused immense damage to the farming community by implementing a “secret agenda” to hand over the sector to private hands. “KCR first disturbed the cropping pattern by implementing regulated farming. His policies destroyed cotton, sugarcane, chilli, turmeric and now paddy farmers,” he said.
By not waiving crop loans up to Rs 1 lakh in a single take, he kept the farmers under huge debts. During the second term, he promised a similar waiver but did not fulfil it. Consequently, almost all farmers were under huge debts, he said. The denial of MSP for most of the farmers had aggravated their crisis, the Nalgonda MP added.
Ridiculing the Chief Minister’s nationwide tour, Uttam Kumar Reddy said Rao was daydreaming of becoming a national leader after setting his own home on fire. “More than 8,400 farmers have committed suicide after the formation of Telangana. Their families were not paid a single rupee ex gratia or compensation. But KCR is offering `3 lakh compensation to the families of farmers who lost their lives during the agitation against the three black farming laws introduced and later repealed by the BJP government,” Uttam Kumar Reddy said.
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