Kurnool: A letter war is on in Telangana as state BJP president Bandi Sanjay issued a counter to Chief Minister Chandrashekar Rao, who blamed the Centre in an open letter to Prime Minister Modi on the travails of farmers.
Bandi raised 11 points in his letter and said KCR was trading in falsehood on the issues of the state's farmers and teachers.
Sanjay wrote, “While BJP is agitating on behalf of teachers and seeking corrections to GO-317, you have written a letter to the Prime Minister to cloud the public minds by saying that the central government acted against the interests of the farmers in the state. This appeared to be a "new drama" played by the CM."
The BJP chief said the Centre was contemplating action against KCR over issues of corruption in projects like Mission Kakatiya and Kaleswaram Palamur-Ranga Reddy, wherein thousands of crores of rupees was siphoned off. “To cover this up, you are resorting to cheap politics by writing letters to the prime minister in the name of farmers. The BJP will not fall into the tricks played by you and we are committed to fighting GO-317 till it is withdrawn,” Sanjay wrote to the CM.
Sanjay said the chief minister should, instead, fulfill the promise he made to the people like free supply of fertilizers to farmers as also the offers in the TRS election manifesto like a write-off of upto Rs 1 lakh bank loans of farmers, a bonus of Rs 500 per quintal on paddy, cotton and maize grown in the state, soil tests to finalise a crop plan for the state and transparent spending of the money released by the Centre to the state as also subsidy for mechanization of agriculture.
The TRS government must also revive poly house subsidy and additional poly houses to SC, ST farmers, ensure implementation of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme in the state, control the sale of spurious seeds, implement crop insurance and introduce e-NAM marketing system for farmers. For drip irrigation, SCs must be given 90 per cent subsidy while BCs should be provided with 50 per cent subsidy, he said.
The letter also alleged that the TRS government has implemented the Rythu Bandhu scheme by withdrawing all other farmer subsidies. “This is a gimmick as clear data alone would bring out the truth whether Rythu Bandhu has knocked off other subsidies and, in the end, was only to the detriment of the state’s farmers," he alleged.
Quoting the bright side of the market that helped farmers reap rich dividends, Sanjay said the cotton price per quintal is at Rs 9000 from a year 2014 low of Rs 4050 while sunflower price also rose to Rs 6015 per quintal from Rs 3710 in 2014. He said paddy which was selling at Rs 1310 in 2014 rose to Rs 1960. “All these are because of the efforts of Prime Minister and the BJP,” Sanjay claimed.
