End farmer suicides, Kodandaram implores at day-long dharna

HYDERABAD: Famed Indira Park area, which is considered as Hyderabad’s very own ‘Jantar Manta’, given its transformation into Dharna Chowk, on Sunday witnessed a protest demonstration with a large number of farmers turning up at the site.

Telangana Joint Action Committee (TJAC) chairman Prof M Kodandaram led this day-long sit-in, called “Rythu Deeksha”, which was first-ever protest in his presence against the TRS government.

During the deeksha, resembling the earlier protests organised by him at the time of Telangana movement prior to 2014, Kodandaram took K Chandrasekhar Rao’s government to task for the ongoing spate of farmers’ suicides in
the State.

Alleging that farmers are being neglected and insulted in the present regime, the one-time mentor of the TRS leadership demanded that the State government announce a policy for the well-being of farmers to put an end to their suicides.

Asking the government to set up an exclusive corporation for the welfare of ryots, the TJAC chairman wanted the State to address the problems of farmers, immediately. “As farmers constitute 60% of State’s population, the economy will thrive only when ryots are happy. The government should take steps to provide social security for farmers. A welfare fund be set up for them,” he said.

Apart from leaders belonging to opposition parties, Telangana intellectuals and civil rights activists such as Prof G Haragopal participated in the deeksha.

For the past few months, the TJAC chief has been attacking the government over farmers’ suicides by holding round-table conferences across Telangana State. “So far, 2,400 farmers committed suicide after formation of the new State,” he said.

Kodandaram had also filed a petition in the High Court seeking to implead himself as respondent in a PIL filed by the Vyavasaya Jana Chaitanya Samithi, which challenged the inaction of the State in preventing the suicides. As per the Court’s advice, the TJAC held discussions with the officials of the agriculture department and suggested the government to formulate a policy to improve the living standards of farmers.
In fact, of late, Telangana has witnessed a sudden surge in protests over farmers’ issues.

Not only Congress, TDP and BJP, even the Left parties have been undertaking dharnas and organising yatras to highlight farmers’ woes.

Now, with none other than the TJAC chairman sounding the war bugle against the government, the political temperature in the State appears to be rising.

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