Narendra Modi to face turmeric heat in Varanasi

Hyderabad: Turmeric farmers, who are demanding minimum support price for their crop and establishment of Turmeric Board, are drawing attention to their plight by plunging into the electoral fray. This time farmers from Nizamabad and Tamil Nadu are filing nominations from the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency from where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is contesting.

While 50 farmers from Nizamabad would file nominations, 111 farmers from Tamil Nadu would be filing their nominations against PM Modi. Turmeric farmers will be leaving for Varanasi to file nominations to the Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency. Telangana Turmeric Farmers' Association Nizamabad district president P Tirupati Reddy said that nearly 50 farmers from Armoor, Balkonda and Nizamabad would file nominations.

Nizamabad farmers got a morale booster with the support of farmers from Erode in Tamil Nadu led by V K Daivasigamani would also be filing nominations in Varanasi. "Our main intention is get Turmeric Board and MSP for the crops. We will not be campaigning against or for any of the candidates. We will be meeting leaders of main political parties for solving our problems," said Tirupati Reddy.

"Resolve of the farmers to contest in the Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency was a welcome move," said Tirupati Reddy. However, Reddy alleged that the Congress and BJP used the farmers' fight to their political advantage and targeted TRS leader K Kavitha. "We believe that our main issue got diverted because of Congress and BJP used the issue for their political advantage and Kavitha was targeted individually," opined Tirupati Reddy adding the Nizamabad MP had tried her best for the Turmeric Board during the last five years.

It is believed that the TRS leaders are behind this move to counter what the BJP had done in the elections in Telangana. Over 175 farmers filed nomination papers in Nizamabad Lok Sabha segment and the Election Commission had to make separate arrangement for the polls by allocating twelve ballot units in each of the 1,788 polling stations to accommodate 185 candidates in the constituency.

The Tamil Nadu farmers, after taking their protests to the national capital to highlight their demands, are gearing up for an electoral battle. Tamil Nadu farmers leader P Ayyakannu said the decision to contest elections from Uttar Pradesh was to draw the attention of the BJP to their plight and solve their problems, including "profitable prices for farm produce".

Farmers, who spearheaded agitations in Delhi in 2017 for over 100 days, said the "moment they (BJP) assure in their manifesto that our demands will be fulfilled, we will drop our decision to contest against Modi." In the event of that not happening, Ayyakannu said that they would go ahead and contest against Modi.

Asked why they were raising the demand with BJP alone and not other parties like the Congress to include it in their manifestos, Ayyakannu said the BJP was still the ruling party and Modi is the Prime Minister. Modi promised to solve our problems and assured us to double our income. The leader wondered as to what stopped the saffron party from giving an assurance now. Already, he said, he has booked train tickets for 300 farmers to go to Varanasi.