VIJAYAWADA: TDP supremo N Chandrababu Naidu has alleged that the YSRC government’s anti-farmer policies in the past one-and-a-half-years eventually led to suicide of over 1,779 farmers in Andhra Pradesh. YS Jagan Mohan Reddy came to power by making tall promises, but after winning the elections, he has turned into a ‘betrayer of farmers, Naidu said.
In the regime of the YSRC, suicides of farmers and farm workers went up by 55 per cent, he claimed. Addressing the party coordinators and in-charges for the parliamentary and Assembly segments through a video conference on Tuesday, Naidu called for burning of the “anti-farmer GOs” issued by the government in the Bhogi bonfires that would be organised as part of the Sankranti festival celebrations. The farmers should burn all the GOs relating to the fixing of meters on farm pump sets, ‘Sunna Vaddi’ scheme, caste-based division of cultivators and diversion of zero-budget natural farming funds.
The farmers in the State had suffered heavy losses because of consecutive natural calamities, but they did not get either crop insurance or input subsidy, the TDP chief alleged. The State government is yet to pay `2,700 crore to the farmers for the foodgrains purchased from them. The paddy discoloured in the heavy rains was not purchased at the government procurement centres, he alleged.