Varanasi setback no dampener for TS farmers

Varanasi: Turmeric farmers from Telangana say they will continue their fight for the establishment of a Turmeric Board in Nizamabad and for minimum support price (MSP) for turmeric despite setback in Varanasi where 24 out of 25 nominations filed by them have been rejected.

"We will continue our fight till we achieve our just demands. However, we will wait until elections are over and new government is formed.

If the new government fails to solve our problems, we will decide on the future course of action", Kotapati Narasimha Naidu, president of the Telangana Turmeric Farmers Association told The Hans India.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking re-election from Varanasi, 25 turmeric farmers from Nizamabad and others districts of Telangana filed their nominations in the holy city to get national focus on their issues.

However, election authorities rejected 24 nominations, leaving a lone farmer from the group, Sunnam Istari, in fray as an independent. Nominations filed by two activist from Andhra Pradesh – Vadde Srinivas and Ravi Kiran – were also rejected. They wanted to highlight fluorosis issue in Prakasham district.

"They have rejected our nominations deliberately, without giving any proper reason. We followed every norm and enclosed all the documents required while filing the nomination.

We have done that despite numerous hurdles created by the officials and police in Varanasi," Naidu explained.

He and other members are currently in New Delhi to lodge a complaint with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) on Monday on the way authorities in Varanasi, he alleged, rejected their nominations undemocratically.

The farmers used similar strategy in Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency and succeeded in filing 175 nominations. "Of 178 nominations we filed in Nizamabad, 175 have been accepted. Then why our nominations in Varanasi were rejected?" he asked.

He alleged that police raided their hotel rooms in Varanasi and created hurdles for them. "In Nizamabad, we were allowed to pay deposit of Rs 25,000 in the form of cash.

Here, they demanded challans, but issued challan forms at the fag-end of the deadline," he said, adding that the farmers would take all these issues to the notice of CEC on Monday.

On the demands, he said farmers were incurring huge losses as there was no MSP for turmeric. "We are seeking Rs 16,000 per quintal as MSP for turmeric.

Farmers spend Rs 9,600 to produce a quintal of turmeric which is currently fetching just Rs 5,000 in the market," he said. He also demanded the central government to set up Turmeric Board in Nizamabad.

"BJP announced that it would include the demand in its manifesto. But it's not there in the party's manifesto for this elections," he said.