Congress, Farmers Hold Rally Against TS Government

The Leader Of Opposition in the Telangana State Legislative Council Mohammed Ali Shabbir today held a rally against the State government and its policies towards farmers and others.

Addressing the rally-turned-public-meeting on Sunday with many farmers and villagers, Shabbir Ali alleged that Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had cheated and deceived his way up the ladder, and listed out the election promises that KCR had allegedly forgotten about.

"Before the bifurcation, KCR had promised that he would have a dalit candidate as Chief Minister. But later, he chose himself as the CM - and then started to ignore dalits and other minorities. The dalit families in the State are still waiting to get the three acres of land that was promised to them by KCR. Dalits still face humiliation, discrimination and other atrocities in this State," he said.

Shabbir Ali also said that KCR did not fulfill a single promise made to Muslims and STs, and pointed out that the Muslim community was yet to receive the promised 12% reservation.

Blaming the TRS-led government for the farmer suicides in the State, Shabbir Ali said, "The previous UPA government had waived off over Rs. 73,000 crores of farmer loans in a span of just one month, whereas this State government has not forgiven the debts even after three years. The KCR-led government split the loan dues into four installments so as to keep the farmers in a debt trap for four years. It further divided the third installment this year into four sub-parts. So far, only 12.5% of the third installment has been cleared. The farmers were not even given the input subsidy that was promised to them. They lost four crops in a row last year and did not get any reimbursment for that. This Kharif season too did not see any assistance from the State or the Centre. Hundreds of farmers in the State have committed suicides over the span of two years due to these issues. Some of their kin have even attempted to file cases with the police against some government officials, but the cops had refused to register any, under pressure," he alleged.

He also pointed out that the double-bedroom housing scheme was another promise that the TRS had left untouched.

"Lakhs of people were misled and forced to believe that they would get the 2-BHK units immediately after the general elections. But it has been 27 months and the government is yet to take steps to fulfill this promise. It has not allocated any funds for the scheme in this year's budget as far as my research goes," the Congress leader said.

He also questioned the State government over the promise it made of providing one lakh jobs to unemployed youth in the State. "When KCR can provide his son a minister's position in the Cabinet, can't he provide simple jobs to the unemployed poor?" he asked.

He also spoke about out the situation of the Indian (Telugu) migrants in Saudi Arabia. He said that as the then Minister for NRI Affairs, he had brought back nearly 1,000 NRIs from Gulf nations as they were duped, trapped and undocumented. However, this government visited the Gulf only to bag investments. The State government had closed down all training centres and neglected the migrants and their families, he alleged.