Give Farmers Freedom To Choose Crops: Congress

Senior Congress leader and former minister Mohammed Ali Shabbir today demanded that the union and state governments give farmers complete freedom to decide what crops they wanted to grow.

Addressing a massive "Dalit Girijana Atma Gaurav Dandora" meeting at Machareddy of Kamareddy district today, Shabbir Ali strongly condemned Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao for warning farmers against growing paddy crops.

He said that the warning was not based on scientific data or market research.

He also pointed out that the Chief Minister had in his Independence Day speech taken pride for the highest yield of paddy in India being in Telangana.

In less than a month he had changed his stand and was now warning farmers against growing paddy and blaming the Centre for non-procurement of paddy, Shabbir Ali said.

"Farmers must be given the freedom to decide what crops will bring them good profits. They should not be forced to practice regulatory farming under any circumstances," he said.

Shabbir Ali also ridiculed KCR's claims that his government was providing all the necessary assistance to the farmers.

He claimed that 24-hour free power supply to farmers had become a reality due to the initiatives taken by the previous Congress government. The TRS government itself was yet to fulfill its promise of waiving off crop loans up to Rs 1 lakh. And banks were not providing fresh loans to lakhs of farmers due to that, he claimed.

Farmers were also not getting proper supplies of seeds and fertilizers. And none of the farmers who lost their crops due to natural calamities had gotten any compensation in the last seven years, he added.

Also, the majority of farmers in Telangana did not have any insurance for their crops due to the negligent attitude of both the BJP and the TRS governments, he claimed.

"When the farmers are still cultivating despite all of these negative factors, the TRS government is adopting a dictatorial attitude by deciding what crops they should grow," Shabbir Ali said, and added that the Congress would not tolerate such diktats of KCR.