Anti-Modi slogans echo in state-wide protests

HYDERABAD: Bharat Rashtra Samithi leaders held state-wide protests against the BJP-led government at the Centre for its decision to recover Rs 151.9 crore MGNREGA funds from the Telangana government for constructing paddy drying platforms in villages, amid anti-Prime Minister Narendra Modi sloganeering.

Apart from ministers, MLAs, zilla parishad chairpersons, Rythu Bandhu Samithi members, ZPTCs, MPTCs, and sarpanches participated in ‘rythu maha dharnas’ marching across district headquarters, accusing the BJP-led government of anti-farmer policies and discrimination against the state in releasing MGNREGA funds.

The protesters asked questioned what was wrong if paddy drying platforms were built with MGNREGA funds, which benefited lakhs of farmers and had helped Telangana emerge as the top producer of paddy in the country along with Punjab.

BRS leaders alleged that the Centre was not releasing the funds of the 15th Finance Commission to gram panchayats from June, 2022 due to which the development programmes in villages were adversely affected. They said the CM has changed the name of TRS as BRS with the prime slogan of "Ab ki baar, kisan sarkar' (this time, its turn of farmers' government at the Centre" and bringing all farmers across the country under one umbrella. Fearing this, the Modi government has hatched a conspiracy to create problems for farmers in Telangana, they accused.

In Nirmal district, minister A. Indrakaran Reddy sat on dharna along with party MLAs and other leaders.  He claimed that the Modi government was impeding the state’s development, unable to digest Telangana's emergence as the top-performing state in the country in all sectors in just eight years.

In Warangal district, panchayat minister Errabelli Dayakar Rao alleged that the Centre has stopped release of Rs 1,250 crore MGNREGA funds to the state on the pretext that the state government diverted Rs 151 crore for setting up paddy drying platforms.

In Huzurabad, former MP B.Vinod Kumar and MLC Padi Kaushik Reddy took part in a protest rally. Vinod said that the Telangana Legislative Assembly had already passed a resolution for linking MGNREGA with agriculture related work and sent the resolution copy to the Centre in November 2014 but the Centre was sitting on the proposal for the last eight years, while Kaushik Reddy alleged that the Modi government was creating troubles for the Telangana government because it feared that the BRS would emerge as an alternative political force in the country in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

In Suryapet district, Rajya Sabha member Badugula Lingaiah Yadav, Zilla Parishad Chairman Gujja Deepika Yogender, TRS MLAs Gadari Kishore, Bollam Malliah Yadav and Sanampudi Saidi Reddy staged dharnas organised at Vanijya Bhavan center.