Turmeric Farmers’ Association State president Kotapati Narsimha Naidu has said that the Returning Officer in Varanasi rejected 24 nominations out of 25 filed by farmers on various grounds and accepted the one filed by Sunnam Istari of Ergatla village in the district.
In a message sent to The Hindu , he accused the Returning Officer of being hand-in-glove with the BJP government for having rejected the nominations filed by the farmers. “In fact, we have filed them taking all precautions and fulfilling all norms as per the guidelines of Election Commission of India. We are surprised at the rejections,” he said.
“Out of the 119 nominations in Varanasi 79 were rejected. We engaged as many as 20 lawyers to ensure the nominations were foolproof. It is a daylight murder of democracy and today is the most unfortunate day in the democratic history,” he said.
In a couple of days the farmers who filed nominations would go to New Delhi to lodge a complaint with the ECI. The authorities in Varanasi had not cooperated with the farmers only to avoid hurdles to the smooth and hassle free re-election of Prime Minister Modi, he alleged.
