TSIT ● Hyderabad
Former Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) President Capt N Uttam Kumar Reddy on Tuesday demanded that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao should tender an unconditional apology to the chilli farmers of Khammam who were implicated in false cases by his government in April 2017 for seeking remunerative prices for their produce.
“When some poor ST farmers held a protest in the Khammam Mirchi Yard over not getting remunerative prices, the TRS (now BRS) government got them arrested and implicated them in false cases. Grievous charges, including Section 307 (murder attempt), were pressed against 10 farmers, he said.
The Congress Lok Sabha MP said the farmers were sent to jail and when 10 farmers were brought from the sub-jail to the district court, they were chained and handcuffed. This was done to send a message to all farmers across Telangana that they would be treated in the same way if they oppose KCR-led government,” Reddy said in a media statement.
He said that the Chief Minister would be holding a huge public meeting in the same Khammam district on Wednesday. The former TPCC President said before beginning his speech, KCR should tender an unconditional apology to the farmers and also announce the withdrawal of cases booked against them in April 2017. Similarly, he said all the cases booked against farmers for holding a protest on various issues across the state since 2014 should be withdrawn. The Senior Congress leader said that the BRS meeting in Khammam was ridiculously aimed at highlighting KCR as a ‘pro-farmer’ CM. “BRS Govt did not fulfill the promise of waiving off the crop loans up to Rs. 1 lakh. Consequently, a majority of farmers are being denied fresh crop loans by bankers.
Telangana’s farmers do not have any crop insurance and none of them ever got a single rupee compensation either from BJP-led Government at the Centre or BRS Government in Telangana when they lost their crops due to natural calamities in the last eight years.More than 8,000 farmers had committed suicide since 2014 and not even 80 of them got compensation of Rs. 6 lakh under GO 421. The ‘Rythu Bandhu’ scheme is just hype as Rs. 5,000 per acre support does not help any farmer. Therefore, KCR should be ashamed of calling himself ‘pro-farmer’,” Reddy said.Commenting on the participation of Chief Ministers of Delhi and Punjab in the Khammam meeting, the former TPCC President said there was no difference between AAP and BRS as both are B-Teams of BJP and their only goal is to strengthen Prime Minister Narendra Modi by weakening the Congress party. “They are trying to join hands only to deceive the common people, especially the farmers,” he alleged. Reddy accused the BRS Government of misusing official machinery for its party meeting and spending taxpayers’ money for political publicity. He said the entire cost, including the cost of transportation and security, should be borne by the BRS and not from the public exchequer. “Expenditure on the construction of helipads, hiring of additional vehicles, movement and food of security personnel and other officials and other related costs.
should be borne by the BRS party,” the MP said. Congress party would be monitoring all the expenses and it would submit a detailed report to the Governor seeking the recovery of the entire amount from the BRS. If required, it will also approach the court for recovery of public money, he added.
