KCR: Burn effigies of BJP over paddy

Hyderabad: Chief Minister Chandrashekar Rao announced on Friday that the ruling TRS will continue its fight against the BJP-led government in Delhi on the issue of paddy procurement. “Our party workers would hold protest rallies in all the 119 assembly constituencies on December 20 and burn effigies of BJP and the Centre to protest against non-procurement of paddy from Telangana,” the chief minister said.

The CM said his party has decided to send a delegation of six ministers and MPs to Delhi on Saturday to take up with the Centre the issue of Kharif paddy procurement. While the Centre and the state government were engaged in a tussle over the non-procurement of paddy from Telangana in the rabi season, for the past two months, the TS government now wants to raise the issue of the FCI fixing a lower procurement target even for ongoing Kharif procurement.

The delegation will seek an appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union food minister Piyush Goyal to discuss the Kharif paddy issue and bring to their notice the concerns of the Telangana government over the low procurement target fixed by the FCI for TS during Kharif.

KCR said the government would continue with the Rythu Bandhu scheme without imposing any restrictions. Agriculture officials had sought curbs like extending the scheme to only such farmers who opt for non-paddy crops. Such restrictions will further trouble the farmers, the CM felt.

The CM presided over a meeting of TRS leaders at Telangana Bhavan on Friday, attended by all ministers, party MPs, MLAs, MLCs, zilla parishad chairpersons, district cooperative marketing society (DCMS) presidents, district cooperative central bank (DCCB) presidents, Rythu Bandhu district committees chiefs, state-level corporation chairpersons and the party's state executive committee members.

Agriculture minister Niranjan Reddy addressed a press conference at Telangana Bhavan to say that the state government has been strongly protesting against the Centre's decision not to procure paddy from TS in the upcoming rabi. “The Centre has pushed Telangana into crisis even in the ongoing kharif procurement season. It has agreed to procure only 60 lakh metric tonnes of paddy in kharif while the estimated production in Telangana is between 1.30 crore tonnes to 1.50 crore tonnes. This would mean the Centre would procure only half of the paddy produced in Telangana in kharif. We will meet Union food minister in Delhi and ask him what we should do with the remaining half paddy. We are also trying for an appointment with the PM to discuss these matters," Reddy said.

He said the chief minister has asked his ministers, party MLAs and other leaders to create awareness among farmers to sow alternative crops other than paddy, by holding frequent meetings in their districts and constituencies. “KCR has asked party leaders to utilise Rythu Vedikas constructed in all the villages to hold such meetings and to expose the double standards of the BJP-led government at the Centre –vis-à-vis its refusal to pick paddy from TS while it is procuring entire paddy produced from Punjab and a few other states,” he added.