State govt held responsible for rising debts of farmers says N Chandrababu Naidu

Mangalagiri: The TDP at a meeting of important leaders presided over by party national president N Chandrababu Naidu on Monday blamed the YSRCP government's anti-farmer policies for the deepening crisis in agriculture in Andhra Pradesh.

The TDP leaders said that the situation had turned so bad that farmers were not being able to cultivate lands taken on lease. Costs of cultivation doubled and the government subsidies were stopped. The Agricultural department was almost closed and its existence became questionable.

As usual, Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy made huge promises during elections but backstabbed the farmers after coming to power.

The TDP meeting discussed various burning problems of the people and decided to bring pressure on the government to withdraw its harmful policies. State-wide protests would be taken up for five days from Tuesday to highlight the problems of the farmers and the steep crisis.

The Jagan regime's policies were responsible for the rising debts of AP farmers. AP came to stand in first place in the entire country in the average debt burden of farmers. Each farmer was carrying more than Rs 2.5 lakh debt on his head. The TDP condemned the 'false propaganda' about Rs 2,000 crore scam in the Fibergrid project on which just Rs 307 crore was spent.

Decrying the rising attacks on Minorities, the TDP condemned the filing of a murder attempt case against Minority Hakkula Parirakshana president Md Farooq Shubli. The false case was filed just because the Minority leader extended his support to the Akbar Basha family, who faced threats from the land grabbers.

The case on Shubli exposed how Chief Minister Jagan Reddy was betraying the Muslim Minorities after coming to power.

The TDP leaders raised the issue of abnormal hike in current charges. True up charges were being collected from prawn and fish farmers. An aqua farmer in East Godavari district got Rs 58,000 current bill while his previous bill was just Rs 28,000.

The TDP leaders said that the YSRCP government became a laughing stock in the State and its unpopularity increased further following the move to start 'mobile mutton and fish marts'. The decision was highly objectionable since such government marts would destroy the community professions of weaker sections and backward classes.

The YSRCP leaders were trying to take over costly lands of aided institutions and Minority and Christian organisations. The TDP would file private cases against the officials who were hand in glove with the ruling party to victimise the opposition.