Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is “sacrificing the Telangana farmers’ interests for the sake of political capital” with his wavering stance on paddy procurement and the only reason is to “paint the Central Government and the BJP as the villain”, charged Union Minister for Tourism G. Kishan Reddy on Friday.
While there is no change in the Centre’s procurement policy and will buy every grain of raw rice this season also as per the prior agreement made with the State government, the TRS regime seems to have decided to politicise the issue, he said, at a press conference in New Delhi.
“Why is there no problem with Andhra Pradesh or Maharashtra having a similar climate and agri seasons? Farmers grow paddy and raw rice or parboiled rice depends on the milling so where is the role of the Centre?,” he asked. The Central Government spends every paisa of the tax payers’ money to procure the paddy through the state government and later the raw rice is given to the Food Corporation of India (FCI), he said and questioned the change in TRS government stance.
