The Congress has said the Chalo Assembly should be an eye-opener to the government and hoped that at least now it would respond to the farmers crisis and rescue them rather than bulldozing the opposition with its numbers on the Floor of the House.
Leader of Opposition K. Jana Reddy and Telangana Congress committee president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy along with senior party leaders told a press conference that the programme was a huge success despite the police excesses and arrests across Telangana.
Mr. Jana Reddy attacked Chief Minister, K. Chandrashekara Rao terming the TRS rule no less than the tyranny of the Nizam. “I have not seem so many arrests in my entire political career than the arrests in the last three years and even Nizam was much lenient. The Government was not even willing to listen to the opposition and their demands for discussions were rejected without giving any reason.” Mr. Uttam Kumar Reddy said the Chief Minister was running the Assembly with the police than the elected representatives. Stating that the Government was not treating agrarian crisis in the State seriously he reiterated that ‘Chalo Assembly’ rally was not a show of strength, but a mode of protest to expose the failure of Chief Minister to honour his own promises.
He alleged that the Government used force to foil the and arrested over 50,000 farmers and Congress workers from across the Telangana State. He also cautioned the police officials against acting like TRS activists.
Loan waiver
Mr. Reddy reminded that the crop loan waiver did not help the farmers as the Government is yet to pay ₹3,000 crore interest accrued over the loan as it was paid in four instalments. “The Chief Minister had agreed to pay the interest on multiple occasions in both Legislative Assembly and Council. However, he did not honour his own commitment.”
He said not a single farmer who lost his crop due to natural calamities has been paid any compensation during the last three years. Similarly, lakhs of farmers were denied crop insurance although they promptly paid their premiums. TRS Government has also failed to help the families of over 3,500 farmers who committed suicide, he said.
Session sans opposition
The TPCC chief said he was shocked that Business Advisory Committee (BAC) meetings were held by Deputy Speaker Padma Devender Reddy while Leaders of Opposition and all Congress MLAs were arrested and kept in police stations.
Ridiculing CM’s intention to hold the session for 50 days, he said it would meaningless to hold Assembly session even for 500 days by throwing out the entire opposition from the House. The TRS Government wants to run the House as per their will and not according to the Constitution and it is better if it was held in TRS Bhavan itself.
