ONGOLE
The Congress Working Committee will take a call on extending the promise of loan waiver of up to ₹lakh promised to farmers in Gujarat to their counterparts across the country at an appropriate time, former Union Minister and CWC Special Invitee Chinta Mohan has said.
''The Congress is sympathetic to the cause of farmers who deserved relief from the mounting debts. I will raise the issue in CWC meet, which will definitely come out with policies to improve the lot of farmers'', he said in reply to a question at a media conference here.
''The Narendra Modi Government has left the farmers in the lurch even while writing off loans advanced to industrialists'', he alleged.. It was the Congress which had extended free power to farmers, he recalled, adding that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party at the Centre and at its behest the YSR Congress Party government were bent upon withdrawing subsidies to the farm sector and hence fixing smart meters to farm pumpsets.
The party had already taken a policy decision to provide cooking gas at ₹500 per cylinder from the very high ₹1,200 now, as the common people were clueless on leading a decent life in the wake of rise in prices of all essential commodities and a heavy dose of taxes and concessions only to big business houses.
''Except for bringing eight endangered cheetahs from Namibia, the BJP-led Government has no achievement to its credit'', he sarcastically said, adding that India ranked poorly in the World Hunger Index as over 60 crore people starved without one square meal a day. ''The situation is worse than in Pakistan and Bangladesh'', he said referring to WHI report.
While the saffron party divided the country for electoral mileage, the Congress was uniting people cutting across religious, castesist and linguistic lines. That was why the Bharat Jodo Yatra of party leader Rahul Gandhi caught the imagination of the people who joined it in large numbers, he said, adding the ‘‘Andhra Pradesh leg of the yatra will enter Anantapur on October 17 and re-enter from Kurnool district on October 20 and continue till October 23.”
People of the State could expect justice only when the Congress returned to power both at the Centre and in the State, he opined, adding that Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy for ‘‘various reasons’‘ was not in a position to raise effectively with the Centre Special Category Status to the State, bifurcation promises and stop privitisation of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant(VSP). It was unfortunate that the ruling YSRCP had turned ‘‘Venkanna Brahomtsavam’‘ in Tirumala into ‘‘Jagannanna Utsavam’‘ with 1000s of flexis hailing the Chief Minister, said the former Tirupati MP.
The administration had come to a standstill so also development in the State with big ticket projects, including Veligonda, Donakonda industrial hub and National Investment and Manufacturing Zone(NIMZ) in Prakasam district, remaining non-starters, he said.
