Congress urges Telangana government to follow Punjab in negating Centre's farm bills

Hyderabad: Taking a cue from Punjab that has passed three of its own agriculture bills in its Legislative Assembly negating the farm bills passed by the Centre, AICC secretary and former MLA Ch Vamshi Chand Reddy demanded the Telangana government to pass and enact its own laws if it was seriously against the Union government's "contentious" agriculture ordinances.

In a letter addressed to Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, Reddy brought to his notice about the injustice being meted out to the farmers by the Central government's three recent "unjust and unfair" farm legislations.

"I, on behalf of Indian National Congress, request you to take a similar path as that of the Punjab government that has done valiantly. Protesting alone will not resolve the problems faced by our farmers. The pressing priority should be to protect our farmers from falling prey to the Union's flawed decisions. Therefore, the State government needs to take a concrete decision immediately by calling in for a special Assembly session and passing necessary laws to uphold the Minimum Support Price (MSP) and safeguard the agriculture market committees. Also, selling or buying below the MSP has to be made a punishable offence so that the farmers will never be exploited," he pointed out.

The Telangana Congress Committee has requested the government to give a financial aid of Rs 20,000 per acre to all the farmers who have incurred huge loss due to the untimely rainfall, and guarantee them with minimum support price for all types of crops as it was our prime responsibility to support and help them during these challenging times, he added.