HYDERABAD: BJP State president Bandi Sanjay Kumar has warned the State government that TRS would be wiped out if paddy wasn’t procured from farmers by opening procurement centres in the Rabi season.
Addressing the media in New Delhi on Tuesday in response to Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s announcement of not opening procurement centres in Rabi, he alleged that the State government had been filling the godowns with old stock rice, while selling the newly procured stocks outside through rice millers.
He cited a physical verification report submitted by a Central team in July, which had found a shortage of 25,303 metric tonnes of rice in the godowns in Warangal district alone. He said Food Corporation of India’s (FCI) upcoming exercise to determine whether the stock was old or new had kept Rao and the rice millers guessing and worried.
Speaking on another issue, Sanjay Kumar also said while the State government owed Rs 12,000 crore as outstanding bills to discoms, presently, the dues had shot up to Rs 42,000 crore, and alleged that the State government was selling power.
Meanwhile, BJP MP Dharmapuri Arvind alleged that the State government was procuring low quality rice from Raichur, Singappa and Ballari in Karnataka at cheaper prices and sending it to FCI through PDS rice recycling. At the same time, they were selling Telangana Sona variety of rice for Rs 40 per kg outside, with which TRS leaders and millers were raking in thousands of crores, he said.
‘TRS copying TMC strategy’
BJP MLA M Raghunandan Rao claimed that on the advice of political strategist Prashant Kishor, with whom the CM has been interacting frequently of late, TRS was trying to create hatred by inciting BJP and TRS cadres against each other by hurling abuses against the BJP leadership — akin to TMC’s strategy during the Bengal polls, as per Kishor’s advice.