Arrogant TRS not concerned about farmers' woes: Congress

Mahabubnagar: The members of the Congress party from Devarkadra and Mahabubnagar districts staged a hunger strike demanding the State government to provide irrigation water to the paddy farmers under the Koilsagar project to the Koilsagar farmers who sown crops over 15,000 acres.

While staging the hunger strike in Devarkadra mandal on Saturday, Devarkadra Constituency in-charge and TPCC secretary G Madhusudha Reddy, along with other Congress leaders from Mahabubnagar district staged a march in support of Koilsagar ayacut farmers and demanded the State government to immediately release water from Koilsagar reservoir.

Speaking on the occasion G Madhusudhan Reddy demanded the government to protect the interests of farmers under Koilsagar Right canal ayacut. "In the name of repairs to the right canal, the government had stopped releasing water through the canal. With this already 10,000 acres of crops have been dried up and the paddy farmers are under deep distress due to the huge losses caused by drying up of the crops."

"The TRS party is playing with the lives of Koilsagar farmers. On one hand, even though the Koilsagar project is full of 27 feet-level of water, instead of releasing water to the crops, the TRS government is setting up boating and other recreational programmes and escaping from their responsibility to protect the interests of the farmers and citing the pretext of repairs to the canal for not releasing water to the drying crops," observed G Madhusudhan Reddy.

The majority of the farmers under the Koilsagar project had sown paddy crops despite the State government declaring a crop holiday. Most of them depended on the tube wells and underground water to protect their crops in summer in case canal water is not released. However, with the groundwater getting steeply low in the region majority of bore wells have dried up and the farmers are now facing the problem of drying of crops.

In view of this, the Mahabubnagar Congress party and leaders from the Devarkadra constituency have started pressuring the ruling party leaders from the region to immediately release water to protect the standing crops and has launched all out protest across various mandals demanding the government to protect the interests of the farmers.

"The TRS party is fooling the farmers and playing with their lives. Time has come to teach a lesson to rule party leaders. If the government does not heed the demands of Congress and protect the farmers, we will further intensify our protest until the farmers get justice. We are demanding the government to immediately announce compensation of Rs. 30,000 to the farmers for their losses due to the government apathy," demanded Madhusudhan Reddy.

The Congress leaders lamented against the Devarkadra MLA Ala Venkateshwar Reddy as he has completely failed to protect the interests of the farmers of Devarkadra constituency. The Congress leaders alleged that the main reason for the farmers facing this pathetic situation is due to the lack of foresight of the MLA. He had not even visited the farmers and miserably failed to console them for their loss. The Congress leaders demanded the Devarkadra MLA to tender his resignation for his failure to protect the farmers of his region.