Congress stages walkout over FCCs

Hyderabad: The Congress members in the Assembly staged a walkout from the House on Monday protesting against the government’s refusal to drop the formation of Farmers Coordination Committees. This took place after a short discussion on Rs 8,000 investment support to farmers. The Congress members demanded that the government drop the decision of formation of Rythu Samanvaya Samithis (Farmers’ Coordination Committees). Congress MLA G Chinna Reddy said that these committees would be used for political gains and they would become Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) committees.

BJP floor leader in the Assembly G Kishan Reddy demanded that the government waive the loans of farmers from a few districts which had been announced as drought-hit in 2013. He said District Collectors had written letters to the government in this regard. He would bring representatives of farmers of these districts to the Chief Minister’s official residence Pragathi Bhavan to explain their issues. Taking objection to the walkout of the Congress, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao said the Congress feared about their future with the formation of Farmers’ Coordination Committees. He said that the government had been providing power to the farmers round the clock at free of cost.

The government had done a comprehensive household survey, was purifying land records, brought several reforms in administration, thousands of new village panchayats would be created, he said adding that the Congress, during its regime, failed to turn Lambada Tandas into villages.

He said during the past 40 months, the government had done a lot of work and would continue to do so in the next 20 months. Earlier, as soon as Speaker S Madhusudhana Chary called Chinna Reddy to continue the short discussion which he had initiated, he raised serious objection to the usage in the government note circulated that ‘criminal negligence’ had been showed towards agriculture in Telangana, in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh.

He said Karimnagar district had got 100 percent water distribution in united Andhra Pradesh, because of which it was known as second Guntur. Karimnagar had also surpassed West Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh, which stood first in paddy production, he said. The State government had slept for three-and-a-half years and suddenly woke up to provide Rs 8,000 per acres annually to the farmers to get votes in the next general elections, he alleged.