PNS|Hyderabad
The Congress has warned the BRS government that its activists will stage sit-ins in front of banks in case the government fails to waive the loans of farmers within a week.
In a statement issued on Monday, TPCC Senior Vice-President Mallu Ravi said that the State and Central governments failed in helping flood-affected people.
Kisan Congress Vice-President M. Kodanda Reddy said that farmers were facing a lot of problems due to non-implementation of loan-waiver schemes. He warned that the Kisan Congress will stage protests across the state and will not allow ministers to travel across the state if the government fails to implement the loan waiver scheme immediately.
Meanwhile, Kisan Congress leaders met Chief Secretary Santhi Kumari and submitted a memorandum on the encroachment of lakes. Later, speaking to the media, Kodanda Reddy demanded that the government pay Rs 10 lakh as ex-gratia to the kin of those who died in the floods. He said that the Congress demanded that the government should pay Rs 20,000 per acre to those who lost their paddy crop, Rs 15,000 per acre for cotton crop, and Rs 10,000 per acre to those who lost commercial crops. He said that they had also demanded that the government should waive agricultural loans immediately.
He said that BRS leaders have encroached lakes and tanks and have constructed farmhouses and that the Congress has evidence regarding this.
Kisan Cong President Sukpal Singh Khaira said the BRS is spending crores for advertisements in other states. But the BRS government has failed to waive farm loans, he pointed out.
He said the State and Central Governments are concentrating on politics instead of farmers’ issues.
Sukpal said that the Congress had set up a farmers fund in Punjab to help farmers affected by floods and added that the BJP has become a party of businessmen.
He said that the Congress manifesto will be based on the farmers’ agenda in the 2024 LS elections and that it will cover issues like MSP, crop insurance and recommendations of the Swaminathan Committee.
