HYDERABAD: Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief K Chandrasekhar Rao on Wednesday announced that his proposed new party, a consortium of regional parties, would implement the Rythu Bandhu scheme in the entire country.
Rao had announced his intention to launch a new national party on Tuesday while addressing a press conference after his astounding success in the Assembly polls. Rythu Bandhu was arguably one of his government’s most ambitious welfare schemes and is considered to have been one of the major reasons for his party’s good performance.
Speaking to the press, Rao said, “Rythu Bandhu, an innovative scheme, was implemented nowhere but in Telangana. We will implement it across the country. This would require Rs 3.5 lakh crore and the Union budget permits this.” He added that the Union budget, in fact, did not have make a sufficient allocation towards Minority welfare. “We will correct this in our Budget,” he said.
The TRS chief claimed that both the Congress and BJP had failed to address agrarian issues. “Our country has not been able to market its agricultural produce outside the country. Our farmers do not get international exposure. Though we have vast tropical and coastal lands, they continue to suffer,” he said.
Rao then commented on Minimum Support Price (MSP), saying that AICC president Rahul Gandhi had lied to the farmers of Mizoram when he was campaigning there recently. “He told them they would get an MSP. But the MSP will be fixed for the entire country, it won’t be announced for individual States,” he elaborated.