CPI stages darna demanding aid to cyclone hit farmers

PNS|Anantapur

The CPI activists and farmers led by state secretary K Ramakrishna staged a darna here on Monday demanding the government to extend financial help to the cyclone affected farmers.

The CPI activists took out a rally to the Collector’s office and staged a darna. Large number of farmers and CPI activists took part in the darna. They hoped that the Collector or other officials would come to them to take a memorandum but they did not.

Irate over this, the CPI activists and the farmers tried to barge into the Collector office by climbing the gate. The police obstructed them and whisked them away to the police station. At a point of time, the activists pushed aside the barricades erected by the police and grappled with them leading to a tense situation. The police arrested Ramakrishna, leaders of farmers’ unions and CPI activists took them to the police station.

Earlier, addressing the gathering, CPI state secretary Ramakrishna deplored that the farmers in the district incurred crop loss due to the Mandous cyclonic. The ruling party MP, MLAs and the officials did not come forward to extend help to them. Adding to the woes of the farmers, fake seeds had forced them to incur losses, he lamented.

“Despite the farming community in doldrums, the ruling party leaders are busy finding more financial sources to earn money. Instead of ‘Gadapa Gadapaku’ the ruling party leaders should take up ‘Polam Polam Ki’ programme to see the plight of farmers”, Ramakrishna said.

He said that groundnut, cotton, redgram, onion and tomato farmers incurred heavy losses due to untimely rains besides some farmers incurred losses due to fake seeds. He claimed that fake seeds were sold in the market with the patronage of a ruling party leader.

The CPI leader vowed to intensify the agitation if the government did not announce financial help to the cyclone hit farmers and also t othe fake seed affected farmers. Taking a dig at the police officials, CPI state secretary Ramakrishna slammed that the police officials had stopped thinking individually and they were dancing to the tunes of ruling YSRCP leaders.