Not afraid of KCR, TRS: Kishan in Parliament
TRS MPs slogans sounded like ‘KCR Bachao’: Minister
With the TRS deciding to boycott the winter session of Parliament as they failed to get the Union government to accede to their demand of buying parboiled rice from the state, Union minister for tourism and culture G. Kishan Reddy said he was not afraid of Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao or his party, and that the slogans raised by the TRS MPs in Parliament sounded like “KCR Bachao”, instead of “Kisan Bachao”.
Regarding the paddy purchase issue, Kishan Reddy advised KCR to not politicise the matter by throwing all the blame on the Union government. He said that the state government should advise farmers on what crops are to be raised and supply the seeds accordingly.
“I reiterate that the Centre will purchase every grain of raw paddy,” he said, adding that the Centre will spend `27,000 crore on paddy purchase. “The non-purchase of paddy by KCR in Telangana points to the fact that he may remove the `1 kg rice scheme. After the defeat in Huzurabad, KCR has lost his balance,” Kishan Reddy said
“Many social welfare hostels and other government projects require rice, which KCR has neglected thus far. The Centre is giving `30 per kilogram of rice, which is doled at `1 by the state government,” he elaborated. He was upset at the way in which KCR was politicising the paddy issue following his party’s defeat in Huzurabad. He said the TRS MPs had been instructed to disrupt the Parliamentary proceedings.
Reddy explained the issues with parboiled rice, and said that the farmers must be supplied with good quality of seeds to produce good rice. “Most of the states in the country grow paddy at temperatures around 37 degrees, and it was not specific to Telangana. It is the millers who pay the ultimate price when such rice is not procured by the Centre,” Kishan Reddy added.