HYDERABAD: A day after Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, BJP State President Bandi Sanjay Kumar released an open letter to the CM on Thursday, accusing him of trying to divert the issue of GO 317 and unemployment in the State, by raising the issue of hike in the price of fertilisers.
He questioned the CM about his promise on April 13, 2017, about giving fertilisers free of cost to farmers, which was not fulfilled even after almost five years. Terming the Chief Minister’s letter as “utter lies” intended to mislead the people, Sanjay reminded him that the Centre had raised the MSP of 23 crops by 50 to 100 per cent since 2014.
He pointed out that neighbouring states were giving Rs 200 to Rs 600 as bonus per quintal to farmers. Instead of following suit, Chief Minister KCR had started a new drama on procurement declaring that paddy in Rabi wouldn’t be procured, which resulted in the death of around 50 farmers, he alleged. If agriculture was flourishing in the State, he questioned why Telangana stood fourth in farmer suicides.
Ramagundam factory
Recalling how farmers used to form serpentine queues to purchase fertilisers before 2014, he has asked the CM to introspect as to how that problem was solved after Prime Minister Modi came to power. He said it was in the best interest of the farmers that the Centre had revived the Ramagundam Fertiliser Factory at a cost of Rs 6,100 crore.