Cong accuses KCR of destroying agriculture in third chargesheet

HYDERABAD: The Congress on Sunday released its third chargesheet against Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao and BRS government accusing him of cheating farmers and pushing them to the brink of disaster.

Referring to the alleged death by suicide of around 1,000 farmers in 2022, the party blamed the state government’s policies, which earned Telangana the dubious distinction of being the fourth worst state in this regard.

‘Haath se Haath Jodo yatra’s state monitoring committee convener A. Maheswar Reddy, who released the chargesheet to ‘expose’ the state government’s failures, said that contrary to Rao’s words that there would be ‘no more suicides’ by Telangana farmers, the period between 2014 and 2020 saw 6,121 anguished farmers taking the extreme step.

The chargesheet pointed out that the unscientific approach towards the agriculture sector has derailed the existing mechanism. It alleged that citing  benefits from schemes like Rythu Bandhu, the government had deprived the farmers of other benefits like agriculture subsidy, including input, seed, fertilizer, drip irrigation and crop insurance.

“The government is behaving as if Rythu Bandhu is a cure-all medicine. What about the plight of tenant farmers, who account for the maximum number of suicides,” Maheshwar Reddy asked.

The party sought to know the fate of the much-hyped crop colonies based on soil testing and promises to transform the state into a seed bowl of India. Failure to check the distribution of spurious seeds and action the culprits under the PD Act has resulted in crop loss in 15 lakh acres each year. The chargesheet questioned the Chief Minster promise of free supply of fertilisers of 26 lakh tonnes per annum.

The Congress, which has taken up a campaign against the irregularities arising out of Dharani portal, lamented that farmers continue to suffer because of the Dharani bloomers.