Congress to take out Chalo Assembly

Hyderabad: The Congress Legislature Party (CLP) has called for ‘Chalo Assembly’ by farmers on October 27, the first day of the Assembly session, demanding compensation to farmers who lost crops due to heavy rains.

The CLP met on Tuesday at its office on the Assembly premises under the chairmanship of Leader of the Opposition K Jana Reddy. Members of the Legislative Council also participated in the meeting.

The CLP called upon the farmers to participate in the ‘Chalo Assembly’ on a big way to show their strength to the government.

However, several legislators including Sampath, Vamsichand Reddy, Rammohan Reddy, N Padmavathi, Council members Santosh and Rajagopala Reddy did not attend the meeting. Leader of the Opposition in the Council Mohammad Ali Shabbir also participated in the meeting.

The meeting was held to chalk out a strategy in the Assembly sessions and the members discussed the ways to follow during the debates in the Assembly for about two-and-a-half hours. It has decided to fight with the government on the issues being faced by the farmers.

Speaking to the media after the meet, TPCC president and MLA N Uttam Kumar Reddy said that the CLP discussed the prevailing issues in the State along with farmers’ issues. He said under the rule of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, the agriculture sector was facing a crisis and farmers were neglected.

He wanted to know why suicides had been committed in Bangaru Telangana and said the loan waiver did not help the farmers in any way. No crop in the State had been provided with minimum support price (MSP) and there was no one to purchase the produce, he said.

Uttam Kumar Reddy said the government failed to keep at least one promise it had made in the Assembly and nothing had been taking place on ground except publicity. Leaders of the government failed to console even one family of the farmers who committed suicide.

He said the promises made in the Assembly and the Council did not carry any value and the government should take steps to protect cotton farmers who were in distress due to crop loss.

He said he was unable to understand why the Chief Minister, Ministers and MLAs had not been responding to the plights of cotton farmers and demanded that even there was 15 per cent moisture, the produce should be purchased.

The PCC president demanded the government to pay Rs 20,000 per acre as compensation to cotton farmers, Rs 15,000 per acre to maize farmers and Rs 15,000 per acre to paddy famers. He alleged that no purchase was taking place in the IKP centres. The grain brought to these centres had been soaked in the rains, he added.

Uttam Kumar Reddy said though the government had given lot of publicity to crop insurance, even one claim was not settled. No statistics had been gathered about the crop loss. Even one rupee was not allocated in the budget for purchase of farm produce whereas the government paid Rs 20,000 crore to the contractors to procure machines for the Mission Bhagiratha programme, he said.

The PCC president alleged that the number of suicides of farmers was more in Telangana than any other parts of the country. He lamented that the KCR rule had become an anathema for the farmers.