BRS to hold farmers' conclaves across villages from tomorrow

HYDERABAD: The BRS has decided to organise farmers' conclaves for 10 days from Monday covering every village to target Congress on the issue of free power to agriculture.

BRS working president K.T. Rama Rao asked party leaders and cadre to widely spread Congress leaders' distressing notion about power supply to farmers. He asked them to hold debates in every village on whether a three-hour power supply was enough for farmers in Telangana as was being claimed by the Congress.

Rao asked them to hold farmer conclaves at Rythu Vedikas in villages and each of the meetings should be attended by at least 1,000 farmers. Resolutions need to be passed condemning the statements of Congress leaders about the free power supply and demanding their apology to Telangana farmers, he said.

Meanwhile, addressing a press conference here on Saturday, ministers G. Jagadish Reddy and S. Niranjan Reddy and MLC Palla Rajeshwar Reddy, demanded the Congress central leadership to spell out its stand on 24-hour free power to agriculture.

They said if Telangana Congress leaders' claims that their national leadership has devised a policy in favour of 24-hour power supply in all states were true, they should start implementing it in Karnataka, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh immediately. Only then can farmers believe them, they said. They pointed out that Chhattisgarh had surplus power generation but it had preferred to sell power to other states instead of giving 24-hour power to farmers like Telangana.