Civic polls fuel a fresh bout of turmeric war
TRS, BJP rush to meet farmers’ demand before elections.
Hyderabad: The issue of the turmeric board for Nizamabad has once again become an issue between the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and the Bharatiya Janata Party as they seek to assert control over Nizamabad and Jagtial districts with municipal elections looming.
Turmeric farmers of both districts who have been silent for the past few months are again taking to agitation to achieve their demand. They had embarrassed TRS MP K. Kavitha during the Lok Sabha elections and are now targeting Nizamabad MP Dharmapuri Aravind of the BJP.
The Joint Action Committee of the farmers has announced that it is taking up a series of agitations in Nizamabad district. As part of this, Rythu Athma Gourava Padyatra (Walk of farmers for self-respect) will set off on December 16.
The farmers want a turmeric board here and a minimum support price (MSP) for red jowar and turmeric.
The BJP suspects that the TRS is behind the re-launching of the agitation. But it was Mr Arvind who had won on the promise of setting up the board and is now being asked to keep his election promise. Mr Arvind had promised on a stamp paper that he would secure the turmeric board or else resign as MP, the farmers say.
Feelings among the farmers had run high during the Lok Sabha elections and 240 turmeric farmers had filed their nominations to contest against Ms Kavitha, dau-ghter of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and the sitting MP, to ensure her defeat as she had not set up the turmeric board in Nizamabad. Ms Kavitha lost the elections and the BJP’s Mr Arvind had won promising to set up the board within 15 days of his victory.
As the walkathon of farmers will start from Monday, sitting BJP MP Mr Aravind held a press conference in Nizamabad on Sunday and assured the farmers that the turmeric board will be set up in Nizamabad before the Sankranti next month.
He also assured the farmers they would get a better support price for turmeric, and criticised the TRS government for failing to send the proposal to the Centre in this regard. He said that the Centre is prepared to announce MSP for the turmeric if the state government sends the proposal to New Delhi.