VIJAYAWADA: TDP general secretary Nara Lokesh on Monday released a 17-point questionnaire, asking Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy to respond on the deep agricultural crisis and the appalling conditions of farmers’ lives under the three-year YSRC rule. Why Jagan tightened the noose around the neck of farmers by fixing meters for the agriculture power connections in the State? The Chief Minister promised to bring ‘Rythu Rajyam’ before the 2019 elections, but now he was aiming to create a State devoid of farmers as a whole, he alleged.
The TDP MLC said under the atrocious rule of Jagan, farmers were facing a threat to their very existence, leave alone ‘Rythu Rajyam’. The Chief Minister was not in a position to tell the people what he had done for meeting the growing irrigation needs of farmers. “Did his government dig up a single minor canal in the past three years? Can the Chief Minister answer this question?”
Condemning the ‘anti-farmer policies’ of the YSRC government, Lokesh said not even a single minor
irrigation project was constructed anywhere in the State in the past three years. No justice was done to farmers of any region. “Does the government make any effort to purchase paddy from farmers this year to ensure a remunerative price for their produce?” he questioned.
The TDP MLC demanded that the Chief Minister clarify on Rs 3,500 crore price stabilisation fund and payment of mere Rs 7,500 to farmers under the Rythu Bharosa as against Rs 12,500 promised.