HYDERABAD: Stating that chilli farmers from the Scheduled Tribe community were “falsely implicated” in police cases by the State government for merely demanding remunerative prices in 2017, Congress MP N Uttam Kumar Reddy on Tuesday demanded that Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao tender an unconditional apology before he begins his address at the BRS public meeting scheduled for Wednesday.
Uttam demanded the State government withdraw all cases filed against farmers since TRS (now BRS) came to power.In a statement, the Congress MP said that the ST farmers were booked under serious charges including Section 307 (attempt to murder), and sent to jail in chains and handcuffs.
“This was done to send a message to all farmers across Telangana that they would be treated in the same way if they oppose the KCR government,” Uttam said. He slammed the State government for not issuing compensation “to even 80 families” while about 8,000 farmer suicides were recorded.
Commenting on the participation of Chief Ministers of Delhi and Punjab in the BRS public meeting, he said there was no difference between AAP and BRS as both are “B-Teams of the BJP” and their only goal was to strengthen Prime Minister Narendra Modi by weakening the Congress.“They are trying to join hands only to deceive the common people, especially the farmers,” Uttam said.