Chief Minister and TRS president K. Chandrasekhar Rao has asked the party MPs to organise a dharna in front of Parliament House in New Delhi in a day or two in protest against the refusal of the Centre to buy paddy produced in the State in the current rabi.
He gave the instructions while addressing the Parliamentary party meeting of TRS on the eve of commencement of the winter session of Parliament on Monday. All the MPs of TRS of both Houses were asked to participate in the protest, sources said.
A release later said the meeting expressed its resentment over the failure of the Centre to break the stalemate even after a delegation of Ministers from the State met Union Food and PDS Minister Piyush Goyal and officials led by Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar discussed the matter with officials in the Ministry.
Annual calender
The meeting also deplored the irrational attitude of the Centre in refusing to lift paddy in rabi and yet keeping the issue live by acknowledging Mr. Rao’s proposal for release of an annual calender on foodgrains procurement at the national level, but not fixing the target of procurement in the State. Therefore, it was decided to launch a struggle against the Centre-sponsored chaos which was a catastrophe for farming community of Telangana, though it was a role model for the country in terms of steep increase in agricultural yields within a short span of time.
In this background, Mr. Rao asked the MPs to raise the voice of the farming community by confronting the Centre on the crisis using Parliament as a platform. The BJP should shed its double standards on procurement policy, he added.
Mr. Rao also criticised the Centre for touching off the State government by offering to purchase only 60 lakh tonnes of paddy as against the projected 90 lakh tonnes in the recent kharif. This should be stoutly resisted by TRS MPs in both Houses. He also asked the MPs to raise the demand for a uniform national foodgrains procurement policy in Parliament to provide a level playing field for all States. The meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar and other senior officials.
