TRS sounds bugle for paddy war

Hyderabad: Upping the ante against the Centre, the TRS party has finalised a five-pronged strategy to put pressure on the Centre to procure the paddy produced in the state.

The protests would begin from Monday by putting up black flags on every house of farmers and would culminate in a huge protest in New Delhi. This was decided at a meeting of senior party leaders here on Saturday. Briefing media, TRS working president K T Rama Rao alleged that the Centre was anti-farmer, pro-corporate and had no concern for the farmers.

He said when the State government realised that the Centre was not caring for the farmers, it appealed to the farmers not to go in for paddy cultivation but it was the state BJP leaders and Union Minister G Kishan Reddy who made promises that the Centre would buy every grain and made the farmers go ahead with paddy cultivation. But, they had taken a 'U' turn, he criticised.

"Union Minister Piyush Goyal talks like a businessman. Delhi leaders say something, Galli leaders say something different. That is BJP," he took at BJP thus.

The TRS would launch protests in all the mandals in the State from Monday. On April 6, the party leaders would take up 'Rasta Roko' on the four national highways in the state. Nagpur, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Vijayawada highways will be blocked. On April 7, the party would organise protests in all the district headquarters in the state except Hyderabad. The ministers and MLAs will also participate in it.

This would be followed by protest in New Delhi on April 11 where all the ministers, MPs, MLAs, MLCs, ZP Chairpersons, DCCB, DCMS, Municipal Chairpersons, Rythu Bandhu Samithi presidents, state executive members would participate in it. The Centre had also misled the Parliament by saying that it did export foodgrains procured under Food Security Act. It had sold one crore tonnes of rice last year, KTR said, adding that TRS would move a privilege motion against the minister concerned.