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KCR threatens stir over paddy procurement, gives Centre 24 hours
The chief of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) KCR has called for a state cabinet meeting at his camp office in Telangana Bhavan in New Delhi on Tuesday to finalise an action plan to purchase paddy from the state’s farmers this rabi season
Telangana will frame a plan to buy the paddy harvest from the state’s farmers unless the central government announces within 24 hours that it will buy the entire produce, chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) declared on Monday.
The chief of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) has called for a state cabinet meeting at his camp office in Telangana Bhavan in New Delhi on Tuesday to finalise an action plan to purchase paddy from the state’s farmers this rabi season, according to a statement from the chief minister’s office.
“If the Centre fails to respond in the next 24 hours, the state government will come out with an action plan to protect the interests of the farmers of the state and step up the agitation to expose the anti-farmer policies of the Centre,” Rao said at a protest meeting in Delhi on Monday.
The TRS has intensified its protest after the Centre refused Telangana’s request to buy parboiled rice in the current rabi harvesting season. The Centre has said it can procure only raw varieties of rice, as they are not consumed widely in India.
About 15 lakh tonnes of parboiled rice from the current harvest has not been procured from the state, Rao said.
“I request Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union minister for food and consumer affairs Piyush Goyal to take a decision on procuring paddy from Telangana, as was being done in the case of other states,” he said.
“We have come all the way to Delhi to highlight the plight of the farmers. We shall wait for 24 hours for your response. Later, we will chalk out a new path and do whatever is required to protect our farmers,” the chief minister said. “But we will also come after the Centre and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and expose your double standards as well as injustice meted out to farmers.”
Stating that the farmers of Telangana were ready for a prolonged battle against the Centre to protect their rights, Rao said the TRS would mobilise support of all the like-minded political parties and build a movement. “Farmers have the power to create an earthquake that will shake the edifice of Delhi’s sultans,” he said.
The Centre should have a uniform procurement policy across the country, he said. “If Modi cannot do justice to farmers, he should step down,” Rao said. “The subsequent government at the Centre will come up with an integrated agricultural policy and get it implemented.”
Rao also hit out at food minister Goyal, saying he was misleading the people of Telangana. “When our delegation of ministers met him, he spoke very cheaply, advising that they should make the people of Telangana habituated to eat broken rice. Have we gone to them for begging? How can he speak so cheaply?” Rao asked.
Bharatiya Kisan union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait, one of the key leaders of the protests against the three central farm laws which are now revoked, was among those present at the protest. Bringing up the anti-farm law protests, Rao said, “No government that made farmers cry has ever survived in the country. We have seen how the Modi government put the farmers through untold hardships for more than a year. They called Tikait a terrorist and anti-national. Yet, he did not give up the agitation.”
Addressing the gathering, Tikait warned that there would be a new revolution by farmers in the country, if the Centre continued to adopt anti-farmer policies.
“There is a need for another long-drawn agitation in protest against the Centre. Our umbrella body Samyukt Kisan Morcha will support any agitation by any state on farmers’ issues,” he said.
Meanwhile, Telangana BJP president Bandi Sanjay slammed Rao’s move of staging a protest in New Delhi. Stating that the Centre was ready to purchase any quantity of raw rice from the farmers of Telangana, Sanjay challenged Rao to procure paddy from the farmers at the minimum support price and supply raw rice from the crop to the Food Corporation of India.
“Don’t enact dramas in the national capital for petty political gains. Nobody would take your deadlines,” Sanjay said.
