Congress: Both Modi, KCR are anti-farmer
TPCC holds ‘Rythu Deeksha’ in support of agitating farmers
Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) president and MP N. Uttam Kumar Reddy demanded that the BJP government at the Centre withdraw the three contentious agriculture laws without any further delay.
Addressing the day-long ‘Rythu Deeksha’, organised by Congress Legislature Party leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka at Dharna Chowk here on Saturday, Reddy said that lakhs of farmers have been protesting against the new farm bills for the last 44 days braving the cold wave in Delhi.
However, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not considering the demands even on humanitarian grounds and actually trying to crush the agitation by prolonging the discussions.
The Congress leader pointed out that the Modi government was willing to give a constitutional guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP) for agricultural produce despite holding nine rounds of talks with farmers' organisations. He said that the Union Government was not sincere in its approach and had mortgaged the interests of farmers to benefit billionaires like Adanis and Ambanis.
Reddy slammed Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao for his U-turn on the new laws, despite having earlier extended overwhelming support to the farmers’ agitation and having actively participated in the Bharat Bandh organised against the laws. He said Rao not only announced open support to the anti-farmer laws, but also decided to scrap IKP and procurement centres for purchasing agriculture produce. He said that the Centre was not willing to guarantee MSP and Rao has decided not to purchase agriculture produce. This situation will expose farmers to extreme exploitation by a few corporates as they will be forced to sell their produce at whatever price is offered to them, he cautioned.
The PCC chief said that the Congress party was holding ‘Rythu Deeksha’ to support the ongoing farmers’ agitation. He accused Rao government of pursuing anti-farmer policies with the Chief Minister ruling like ‘Tughlaq’. He said that Rao has caused heavy losses to lakhs of farmers by forcing them to adopt regulated farming. The
Chief Minister did not pay any compensation to the farmers who suffered extensive losses after growing superfine varieties of paddy, instead of the regular varieties.
Instead of being apologetic, Rao made a U-turn and silently withdrew regulated farming. He said that procurement centres and cooperative societies were established by the earlier Congress regimes to help farmers. Therefore, he said that the incumbent government has no right to abolish systems that benefit farmers. Reddy disputed Rao’s claims of having suffered losses to the tune of 7,500 crore after procuring agricultural produce. He wondered how the government will suffer losses when the produce is purchased by Food Corporation of India (FCI).