KAKINADA: Minister for Agriculture Kurasala Kannababu has lambasted the TDP for allegedly playing ‘diversion’ politics, when the State government has taken up a noble cause of providing house sites and houses to the poor to ensure they have shelter and self-respect.
Addressing mediapersons, he said from the beginning, the TDP for its own political mileage has been obstructing the housing scheme for the poor and even encouraged its cadre to file petitions in the courts. “They are demons who desire nothing but to spoil homams performed by devatas for the good of mankind,” the minister said.
Ridiculing the three-day Rythu Paramarsa Yatra of the TDP starting Monday, during which party national general secretary Nara Lokesh will meet the kin of farmers who reportedly committed suicide, the minister said when he was a minister, Lokesh had failed to even visit the houses of the farmers who died by suicide, leave alone providing ex-gratia to their families.
“They had closed the farmer suicide cases to show there were no farmer suicides. However, after our government formed, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had compensated families of 480 farmers who died by suicide based on the data provided by the NCRB. Moreover, for the first time, farmers are compensated for their crop loss within one month. On December 29, farmers who suffered losses due to the Nivar cyclone will be compensated and a total of `650 crore will be credited to the accounts of the farmers,” he explained. Kannababu expressed dismay over the claims of the TDP that the government is not compensating farmers, not providing insurance coverage and not giving them input subsidy. He dismissed them as blatant lies.
“We are ready to accept constructive criticism from the opposition, not mudslinging and even people will not believe such blatant lies. If such an attitude continues, the TDP, which was reduced to 23 seats, might not get even 2-3 seats in the next Assembly polls,” he predicted.