JAGTIAL: Tension prevailed at Jagtial District Collectorate on Monday, as scores of sugarcane farmers staged a protest demanding that the Mutampeta Sugar Factory be reopened. Raising slogans like ‘jai jawan, jai kisan’, the farmers wanted the TRS-led State government to keep its election promise of reopening the sugar factory. Anticipating the protest, the police had deployed massive forces at the Collectorate, in addition to erecting barricades. On March 24, the farmers had conducted a Chalo Assembly rally, and the police had detained them.
This time too, the police arrested several farmers stating that protests were not permitted in view of Covid-19. A few Congress and BJP leaders, who had extended their solidarity to the farmers, were also detained.
Speaking to the media, Mamidi Narayana Reddy, the president of Sugarcane Producers Farmers Association said, “The TRS government had assured that it would reopen the factory within 100 days if it came to power in the State. But it has gone back on its word. The government is suppressing the voice of farmers. We are not even being given the chance to express our grievances.”
“We will teach a befitting lesson to the TRS government in the next elections,” said Rythu Aikya Vedika president Pannala Thirupathi Reddy. “Due to the attitude of the State government, several sugarcane farmers have stopped cultivation of the crop altogether. The ones who still cultivate it don’t know where to sell their produce,” a farmer alleged.