Congress leaders launched a tirade against TRS government led by K. Chandrashekar Rao saying that it miserably failed in providing succour to farming community which has been facing unprecedented crisis in the recent past without support from any quarter.
They said that the Chief Minister could not keep his promises of complete loan and interest waiver and announcement of bonus in addition to the minimum support price to paddy, cotton, chilli, maize, soya and other crops resulting in huge financial burden to farmers.
Addressing a joint press conference here at the native village of former Major Irrigation minister Prodhuturi Sudharshan Reddy, on Thursday, TPCC president N. Utham Kumar Reddy said that KCR did not call on a single bereaved family of farmers when over 3,500 peasants committed suicide in the State in the last three years.
Even today pattadar passbooks of 35 lakh farmers and gold jewellery of their women remained mortgaged in banks as the Government could not clear off the loan and interest payment, he said.
Cabinet allocated ₹10,000 crore in the budget for the payment of bills to Andhra contractors for work done in Mission Bhagiratha. However, not even one rupee was remitted towards crop loan interest waiver in banks, he pointed out.
The Congress party gave a call for “Chalo Assembly” to highlight these issues, but the government panicked and was resorting to house arrests and massive police repression, he said.
The repressive measures of Government mirrored the ‘dictatorial tendencies’ of Chief Minister, senior MLA Ms. D.K. Aruna said adding that the police started picking up farmers and Congress leaders. The police were even going on to farms and arresting the farmers working on fields, she said.
Party senior leader G. Venkatramana Reddy also spoke and a galaxy of party leaders were present.
