Hyderabad: Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) along with farmers staged a rasta roko (road blockade) in various parts of the state as part of a series of protests on paddy procurement on Wednesday.
Top leaders including ministers A Indrakaran Reddy, Puvvada Ajay Kumar, Ch Malla Reddy and others participated.
Road blockades were organised at Kadthal and Adilabad on Nagpur national highway, Bhoothpur on Bengaluru national highway, Kodad, Suryapet, Nakirekal and Choutuppal on Vijayawada national highway and Sangareddy on Mumbai national highway.
Due to the protests traffic was brought to a halt for several hours.
Under the first phase, TRS staged demonstrations in all mandals across the state on Monday. As part of the third phase, protests will be organised in all 12,769 villages.
The paddy procurement issue
TRS working president KT. Rama Rao has appealed to farmers to put up black flags atop their houses, take out protest rallies and burn effigies of the Central government. Under the fifth phase, state ministers and public representatives will stage a protest in Delhi on April 11.
The TRS leader said that despite repeated requests by the state government and the visit by a ministerial delegation to Delhi to meet Union Food Minister Piyush Goyal, the Centre refused to procure paddy from the state and was insisting on raw rice. He said the state had been demanding that the Centre should procure the entire paddy as it is procuring from Punjab.
“When you can have one nation one ration, why can’t you have one nation one procurement,” he asked.
(With inputs from IANS)
