Hyderabad: Excise minister Jupally Krishna Rao, government adviser Mohammed Ali Shabbir, Congress MLAs T. Ram Mohan Reddy, Kasireddy Narayan Reddy and others came down heavily on the BRS for politicising drought conditions and attempting to provoke farmers against the Congress government.
Addressing separate press conferences in Gandhi Bhavan on Tuesday, they took strong exception to BRS leader T. Harish Rao threatening to lay siege to the Secretariat if farmers were not paid compensation of Rs 25,000 per acre for the crop loss on account of drought.
They accused the BRS leaders of showing false concern for the farmers and said the BRS government had neglected the farm sector in the last 10 years.
Krishna Rao alleged that BRS leaders, especially Harish Rao, were enacting a drama by visiting agricultural fields. "The state government has begun enumerating losses at the field level. We have spoken to the farmers and tenant farmers and told them to have courage. We will support every farmer whose crop has been lost. The government will take steps to compensate all the farmers who have suffered losses," he said.
Shabbir Ali said crops were six times lost due to drought or other natural calamities during the BRS government tenure but it never provided compensation or even visit the affected farmers.
The Congress government has decided to immediately compensate the affected farmers with Rs 10,000 per acre, he said.
Ram Mohan Reddy said BRS leaders had no right to visit the farmers or criticise the Congress government. "The crop insurance scheme was implemented earlier by the Congress government. The BRS government scrapped the scheme. No compensation was given for crop loss in the last nine years. The Congress government has now revived the crop insurance scheme. The Congress government will also pay the crop insurance fee of the farmers," he said.
