Harish Rao slams Congress govt for humiliating farmers in Kamareddy
BRS leader T Harish Rao condemned police action against farmers protesting the short supply of urea, accusing Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy of harassment and mismanagement. He warned of public backlash and demanded an end to cases filed against marginalised farmers over fertiliser distribution immediately
Hyderabad: Voicing concern over the humiliation and deprivation faced by farmers in the State, BRS leader and former minister T Harish Rao condemned the police action against farmers staging protests over the short supply of urea.
He said Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy was reducing Telangana’s farmers to the status of criminals through alleged police harassment and mismanagement. The controversy erupted as desperate farmers, facing acute shortages of urea essential for the Kharif sowing season, queued up at Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS) in Kamareddy and other districts. Farmers were shifted in groups to nearby stations on the plea of verifying their details for the issue of token distribution. This has sparked widespread protests, with farmers blocking roads and pelting stones at distribution outlets.
Lambasting the incident as a “new low” in the State government’s handling of the agrarian crisis, he said illegal cases were foisted on Dalit, tribal and marginalized farmers who fought for land rights, and now they have been shackled.
“Today, you’ve forced farmers to abandon their ploughs and head to police stations to beg for subsidies, this is the pathetic state you’ve reduced them to,” he said. “Are the farmers who feed the nation criminals to this Congress government? With your incompetent rule, you’re strangling the farmers. You’re dragging the annadatas to the streets and deriving sadistic pleasure from their plight,” he said.
Rao warned that history would judge Revanth Reddy harshly for creating conditions where “farmers are seated in police stations just to receive fertilisers.”
“The entire Telangana society is watching your tyrannical attitude of treating farmers like criminals. At the right time, they will teach you a lesson,” he added.
