BJP flays state govt for failure to help farmers

Ongole: The Bharatiya Janata Party leaders demanded the YSR Congress Party leaders take up the Gattu Gattuku Mana Prabhutvam programme, instead of the Gadapa Gadapaku Mana Prabhutvam, and save the farmers from the situation of committing suicides due to the losses suffered from Cyclone Mandous. The BJP and its Kisan Morcha state leaders including BJP AP secretary Nagothu Ramesh Naidu, AP Kisan Morcha president Vangala Sasibhushan Reddy along with their local leaders visited various crops damaged fields at various villages in the Prakasam district on Thursday.

Speaking at a press meet in Ongole, after interacting with the farmers who suffered losses from the cyclone, the BJP leaders said that ministers and MLAs failed to visit the farmers and console them. They said that it is time for the YSRCP leaders to take up the Gattu Gattuku Mana Prabhutvam programme and understand the plight of the farmers, rather than spending time on Gadapa Gadapaku Mana Prabhutvam. They said that the farmers have spent lakhs on tobacco, and other crops by taking gold loans and crop loans, but lost everything now. Some of the farmers are on the verge of committing suicide as there is no concrete response from the government to protect them from losses.

The BJP leaders said that the YSRCP president promised to bring Rythu Rajyam into his government while doing the padayatra, but stopped schemes that provide subsidies, tools, implements and equipment after becoming the chief minister. They said that YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has cheated the farmers by all means and even failed to create the Price Stabilization Fund, as he promised. The BJP leaders announced that they would take the farmers to the Minister of Commerce Piyush Goyal, and request him to include tobacco, banana, papaya and other crops also under Fasal Bima Yojana.

They demanded the state government announce Rs 50,000 as input subsidy to the tobacco farmers, Rs 30,000 to groundnut farmers and accordingly to the farmers of other crops. The district Kisan Morcha president Unnam Srinivas, tobacco board member Bodapati Brahmaiah, Seggem Srinivas, Ummadisetti Nageswara Rao, Prasad, Srinivasa Rao and others also participated in the programme.