Hyderabad: 'Paddy crisis is the result of Centre's lopsided policies'

Hyderabad: Launching a strong verbal attack on BJP and Congress, TRS working president KT Rama Rao stated that the present crisis over paddy procurement was because of lopsided polices of the Central government.

Rama Rao was addressing a gathering at Telangana Bhavan where Congress leader from Karimnagar Chalmeda Lakshmi Narasimha Rao joined the TRS along with his supporters. KTR recalled how Narasimha Rao despite in Congress had supported K Chandrashekar Rao during the 2006 bypoll.

Calling BJP and Congress leaders as 'Chillara gallu', KTR said, "One BJP MP says KCR and KTR are rice smugglers. Do they have brains? Is this the way to do politics? Are these BJP MPs human beings or animals?" He further claimed that Union Minister Piyush Goyal had referred the state BJP chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar as 'Bevakoof'(foolish) for his irresponsible talk on paddy procurement.

Referring to TPCC Chief Revanth Reddy as "TPCC Cheap", the TRS leader said that the Congress MP was saying KCR was involved in a vaccination scam of Rs 10,000 crore. "In fact, facing opposition from people of the country, the BJP government at the Centre brought free vaccines to people and before this, the State government spent some money on the vaccine," he said.

The TRS leader said that the change in the Central government's policy was the reason for the present crisis. Giving figures, he said that in 2014, the total paddy procured by the State government was 24.30 lakh tonnes by spending Rs 3,392 crore. In the last Yasangi, the government purchased 1.40 crore tonnes spending Rs 26,611 crore and this was possible because of the increased acreage under projects like Kaleshwaram and Mission Kakatiya.

KTR said as per the handbook released by the Reserve Bank of India, Telangana was contributing for the development of backward States ruled by the BJP like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. "Telangana is in 11th place in terms of size, but it is fourth in terms of contribution to the country's growth," said KTR, adding that the per capita income of Telangana was double than the national average.

The TRS leader alleged injustice to Telangana by the BJP government by listing out the failures to implement the promises made in the Reorganisation Act.

He also took exception to the cases against the opposition party leaders. "When we ask the BJP leaders what they have done for Telangana, they talk about Hindu-Muslim and when we question them, they threaten with IT, ED and CBI raids. No one will be afraid of your cases. We are neither Ghulams of Gujarat nor slaves of Delhi. We are answerable to the people of Telangana," mocked KTR.