TRS Slams Congress, BJP Over Farmer Suicide Claims

Telangana Agriculture Minister Pocharam Srinivas Reddy today lashed out at the Congress and the BJP for criticizing the State government on the issue of farmers suicides in the State.

Addressing the media along with MLCs Palla Rajeshwar Reddy and P Sudhakar Reddy on Friday, Srinivas Reddy took a dig at the successive governments for implementing "crooked agricultural policies" and for "ignoring" the plight of farmers.

"Had they built projects on the Godavari and Krishna rivers, agriculture activities would have flourished throughout the AP and Telangana regions," the minister said.

The leaders of the previous governments had started off projects, taken funds from the Centre and then had forgotten about them. They had acquired lands from the farmers for these projects and did not pay any compensation, which made farmers take their own lives.

He also said the Centre had ignored Telangana government's' recent pleas for financial assistance towards input subsidy. The BJP should press the Centre to release funds towards input subsidy and drought relief, he demanded.

In united AP, the leaders had ignored the reservoir projects in Telangana, he alleged, and claimed that the TRS government was trying to complete the same projects expeditiously.

"The Opposition should stop slinging mud at the State government. Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao wants to irrigate one crore acres of land over the next five years and has already started to allocate funds for projects," he said.

Now that the State has received copious rainfall, farmers would get irrigation waters for the second crop, he said. The State government had taken steps to supply seed, fertilizers adequately to the farmers.

He slammed the Congress, the TDP and the BJP for "hindering" the State's progress with their constant criticism against the government's undertakings.