HYDERABAD: Agriculture Minister S Niranjan Reddy has dared BJP state president and Karimnagar MP B Sanjay Kumar to get an assurance from the Centre on Thursday that the Food Corporation of India would buy all the crops produced in Telangana in the coming Yasangi season. He also urged him to protest in support of farmers until the Centre purchased each and every grain of paddy produced in the state.
Addressing mediapersons on Thursday, he showed a letter written by the Under Secretary of the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, dated September 30 and addressed to the Commissioner of Civil Supplies, Government of Telangana, in which the Centre had agreed to procure 20 lakh tonnes of parboiled rice from the last Yasangi season on the condition that the state does not deliver such a form of rice to the FCI in the future.
He spoke about how the state government has been pursuing the issue of paddy procurement four months before the Vaanakalam started and that in spite of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao himself going to Delhi to press the issue of paddy procurement, the Centre was non-committal.
Disclosing that the state government has spent Rs 1 lakh crore to procure paddy from farmers in the past seven years, he said Telangana was the only state to set up paddy procurement centres in every village.
Also pointing out that for this Vaanakalam season, the Centre has agreed to accept only 59 lakh tonnes of paddy from the state, he said the Telangana government had requested the Centre to procure 1.35 crore lakh tonnes which were being produced in Vaanakalam 2021.
Terming the BJP's rythu deeksha as an election stunt being enacted before the Huzurabad byelection, he advised the BJP leadership not to play with the lives of farmers.
Promising that he would resign from his ministerial position if his statements were proved wrong, he challenged Sanjay Kumar and Union Minister G Kishan Reddy to tender their resignations and hold protests in support of the farmers.