KCR started dharna in Delhi targeting PM Modi.
New Delhi:
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi over a dispute related to the purchase of rice from farmers in his state, as he began a sit-in in Delhi, just months after it sparked a fresh confrontation. Central government’s climb on new agricultural laws.
He said, “If Modi has the power, then arrest me. With folded hands, I tell the PM [Union Food Minister] Piyush Goyal. Please buy our food grains. I will give you 24 hours, after that we will take our decision.
“Telangana demands its right. I want to ask the PM to make a new agriculture policy, and we will contribute to it as well. If you don’t do this, you will be removed and the new government will form a new unified government. Agriculture policy,” KCR said.
KCR said, “Don’t play with the sentiments of those farmers who have the power to topple the government. Farmers are not beggars.”
Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leaders led by the Chief Minister began a day-long sit-in against the Center in the national capital on Monday, demanding the purchase of 1.5 million tonnes of boiled rice from the state.
This will be TRS’s first protest rally in Delhi after coming to power in Telangana in 2014.
Party MPs, MLAs, all cabinet ministers and elected representatives of urban and rural local bodies sat on a dharna at Telangana Bhavan.
The TRS intensified its protest and reached Delhi after the central government allegedly refused Telangana’s request to buy boiled rice in the current crop season.
Before the sit-in, TRS put up hoardings and posters with slogans of ‘one nation-one procurement policy’ and ‘protecting farmers’ interests’ in and around Telangana Bhawan in Delhi.
KCR, who is the TRS president, is in the national capital for the past 10 days to review arrangements for medical check-up and protests.
The Center had opposed Telangana’s stand, with Union Food Minister Piyush Goyal saying recently that the Telangana government had given in writing that it would supply raw rice, not boiled rice, to the Food Corporation of India.
Telangana state BJP president Kumar on Saturday alleged that the TRS government’s “politics on paddy procurement” smacks of a large-scale conspiracy to make crores of rupees to middlemen and divert farmers’ anger towards the Centre.