Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson Mahesh Konagala said the GO clearing the names of four ruling party MLAs for Israel tour has yet again proved the TRS government’s dishonesty. The government is least bothered when 700 farmers had committed suicide. The government did not constitute a committee to assess the crop damage in 52,000 hectares due to heavy rain.
He charged that the four TRS MLAs had business interests -- while one was a well-known granite exporter, two others ran professional colleges and yet another one was a former Central government employee.
“They have changed the definition of progressive farmer,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Agriculture University distanced itself from the controversy stating that it had nothing to do with it as all the decisions were taken by the government.
“We didn’t even know that the expenditure for the visit would be met by the university till the issue appeared in the newspapers today (Tuesday). The government will deal with the issue and we have nothing to do with the controversy,” sources in the Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University stated.
BJP’s poser
“Didn’t Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao find even a few genuine progressive farmers in entire Telangana, as he has selected four ruling party legislators,” official spokesperson of BJP Krishna Sagar Rao asked, criticising the government’s decision. When contacted, highly-placed official sources said the controversy was very much avoidable had the government made it clear that it would send some legislators on the exposure visit instead of progressive farmers.
Meanwhile, in an attempt at damage control the legislators concerned were understood to have been told by the powers-that-be to hold press conferences and say that they too were progressive farmers. “They were told to explain their interests in agriculture and to defend the government decision saying there was nothing wrong in their selection for the visit,” official sources told The Hindu .
