Hyderabad: TRS working president and Minister KT Rama Rao on Saturday announced that the party will organise a five-pronged protest against the centre’s attitude towards paddy procurement from Telangana.
“On April 4, protests will be conducted at all Mandal headquarters in the state. On April 6, TRS workers will conduct ‘Rasta roko’ on the National Highways leading to Mumbai, Nagpur, Bengaluru, and Vijaywada.m On the 7th, protests will be held with lakhs of farmers at all district headquarters except Hyderabad. On April 8, every farmer will hoist a black flag across 12,769 panchayats in the state. Rallies will also be held. Effigies of the centre will be burnt. On April 11, TRS ministers and public representatives will hold protests and the party MPs will voice their opposition in Parliament,” he informed.
Addressing the media at Telangana Bhavan on Saturday, he deplored the behaviour of the BJP leaders both at the centre and the state and said that their rhetoric is putting farmers under confusion.
“Last year, chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao and the ministers went to New Delhi and met with union minister Piyush Goyal multiple times during the Yasangi season. He informed us that the centre wouldn’t be procuring parboiled rice like the years before. Keeping in mind the welfare of lakhs of farmers, we urged the centre to not put clauses like raw rice only and parboiled rice only. We asked them to procure rice according to the Food security act. But we understood that the BJP led centre is only for the corporates and not the farmers,” he remarked.
He attacked the BJP’s policy on the issue of procurement and asked whether they have a one-nation-one procurement policy across the country or not.
“We need a unified procurement policy across the country. “You (centre) procure paddy from Punjab and we asked whether you will do the same in Telangana or not. Why shouldn’t we have one nation one procurement just like one nation one ration?” he questioned.
KTR then spoke about the history of protests organized by the TRS on the issue and said that the state BJP leaders are misguiding the farmers.
“We have conducted protests at procurement centres across the state on November 12, 2021. On November 18, the chief minister sat on a protest at Indira Park. By listening to the state government, farmers didn’t produce paddy in 15 lakh acres of land in the state. But, believing in the words of the BJP Chief Bandi Sanjay Kumar and other BJP leaders in the state who promised full procurement from the centre, many have cultivated paddy on 35 lakh acres across the state. Now, who will buy that crop?” he questioned.
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