Hyderabad: Advisor to the Telangana government (SC, ST, BC and minorities) and Congress senior leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir accused the BRS leaders of shedding crocodile tears over the farmers’ issues.
He questioned, “With what face are BRS leaders going to the farmers, as the BRS government has completely neglected the farm sector in the last ten years?”
He alleged that BRS leaders, especially former minister Harish Rao, were enacting the “drama” of visiting the farmers to check the crop damage.
Shabbir Ali said that during the 10-year rule of BRS, at least six times the crops were lost due to drought or other natural calamities.
“But not even once did the then BRS government provide compensation for the crop damage or at least visit the affected farmers. Consequently, in the last Assembly elections, the people voted against BRS, bringing the Congress party to power,” he added.
He said that the BRS “stinks because it is full of corruption”.
He said the Medigadda barrage had collapsed due to former chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao’s (KCR) “bribery” of thousands of crores. He said that farmers’ hopes of getting water for their crops have faded.
Shabbir remarked that KCR’s daughter and MLC K Kavitha was in jail for her alleged involvement in a liquor scam, while KCR’s nephew Santosh Rao faced “severe cases of land grabbing.”
He suggested the time had come for BRS leaders “to go to jail rather than visit farmers.”
Shabbir Ali said that untimely rains and hailstorms have damaged crops and that the state government has begun enumerating losses at the field level in the villages.
“We have spoken to the farmers and tenant farmers and told them to have courage so that the farmers do not fall into despair. We will support every farmer whose crop has been lost. The government will take steps to compensate all the farmers who have suffered losses across the state,” he said.
He said that chief minister Revanth Reddy had directed the officials to survey the crop damage, thinking that “the self-esteem of the farmer brothers would not be damaged.”
“Agriculture minister Tummala Nageshwar Rao has taken measures to review the situation from time to time. The government has decided to compensate the farmers who lost their crops due to untimely rains,” he added.
