Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has accused Union Minister of Food and Public Distribution Piyush Goyal of insulting the people of Telangana by asking a delegation of Ministers and MPs that met him in New Delhi on Thursday to make people in the State practise consuming boiled rice or broken raw rice to overcome resolve rabi paddy procurement issue.
Speaking to newspersons here on Friday, Minister for Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Errabelli Dayakar Rao said it was due to pro-farmer policies being adopted by the TRS Government that the agriculture sector had transformed in Telangana encouraging even software professionals and engineers to take up farming and people who migrated to urban areas to go back to villages to engage in agriculture again.
He sought to know from the Union Minister whether the Centre had even an iota of role in the transformation of agriculture sector in Telangana and in case Mr. Goyal was willing to know first what Telangana Government had been doing to the farmers he must come for a debate on the issue in Hyderabad so that it could be decided who should consume broke rice and parboiled rice, Mr. Dayakar Rao suggested.
Giving his own example the Minister said when he was fed up with agriculture when all the seven borewells sunk by him for raising crops had gone dry, his interest in farming was reignited with availability of water for irrigation with the help of completion of pending projects and taking up new projects by the TRS Government.
Terming the BJP leaders as those who do not know the difference between raw rice and parboiled rice, Mr. Dayakar Rao asked people not to allow BJP leaders to enter their villages until the rabi paddy was procured by the Centre since it was they who provoked farmers to go for paddy this season assuring that they would make the produce buy at any cost.
He also faulted State BJP president Bandi Sanjay for writing to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to procure paddy forgetting that it was the constitutional obligation of the Centre to procure foodgrains in States to ensure food security in the country.
Chairman of Telangana Rashtra Rythu Bandhu Samithi Palla Rajeshwar Reddy said the BJP leaders who were boasting of double-engine growth were adopting double standards in the matter of paddy procurement and by discriminating against Telangana. He sought to now how Telangana farmers could produce three crore tonnes of paddy in one year (last year) if the KCR was anti-farmer. He also accused the BJP MPs from the State of misleading the Centre on the paddy issue.
