Anti-Modi slogans to echo in Delhi today

Hyderabad / New Delhi: Almost all the top leaders from mandal-level to MP-level of Telangana Rashtra Samithi will be participating in the dharna organised by TRS in New Delhi on Monday. The party leaders have threatened to take up the protest on the lines of Punjab and Haryana farmers.

Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao would be targeting the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP government. The dharna would be held from 10 am to 2 pm at Telangana Bhavan on Monday where all the party leaders, including MLAs, MLCs, MPs, Ministers, Zilla Parishad chairpersons and party activists will be present. While the majority of leaders are camping in New Delhi, the Ministers, including KT Rama Rao, Errabelli Dayakar Rao, Singireddy Niranjan Reddy and others will reach country's capital late on Sunday night.

According to party leaders, the Chief Minister is likely to go all guns blazing against the BJP government on its policies. The TRS leaders have been demanding the Centre to bring out a uniform procurement policy.

Meanwhile, reviewing the arrangements for the dharna along with the Planning Board Vice-Chairman B Vinod, MP Suresh Reddy and others, MLC K Kavitha expressed concern over the possible impending food crisis. She said that because of the anti-farmer policies being implemented by the BJP government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the country was going to face a big food crisis in the days to come.

She said that the crop production in Telangana was doubled due to improved irrigation facilities by the State government and now it was the Centre's responsibility to purchase every grain of paddy. She said that their party would conduct protests till the assurance was given by the Centre, and would intensify their protest on the lines of Punjab and Haryana farmers, who agitated for over a year against the three controversial farm laws, which finally forced the Modi government to repeal them.

Vinod Kumar questioned what had happened to the promise of doubling the income of farmers by 2022? The State government has been consulting with the Centre for the last six months over the issue of paddy procurement, but the Modi government never expressed its readiness to purchase the paddy, Vinod Kumar alleged.

Before leaving for Delhi, Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy said that when FCI refused to procure discoloured paddy in 2001-02 and when the Punjab government took up protest, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led government came forward to procure the paddy. It is not proper to be rigid on the issue of farmers and the Centre should procure the entire crop without any condition, he said.