Tadepalli, July 10: Former Chief Minister and YSRCP President YS Jagan Mohan Reddy tore into the Chandrababu Naidu-led government for its repressive approach in detaining, beating up, and harassing farmers during his Banagarupalem visit.
In a strongly worded post on X, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy said, the propaganda machinery of Chandrababu Naidu has tried to show the farmers’ issue in poor light and the world has seen the overwhelming response despite harsh restrictions and blatant distortions in its friendly media.
The issue belongs to 76,000 farmers who produced 6.5 tonnes of mango in an area of 2.2 lakh acres and could not get the minimum price for the past two months and had to throw the crop on the wayside in distress, and these sights have become common of late.
Dubbing all those who question for not getting welfare schemes as anti-social elements is audacious and all sections of people, including farmers, youth, women, students, and others, have hit the road to express their dissent, he said.
If mango farmers are not in distress, why did the government announce to give Rs. 4 per kg, and why were false orders given to factories to buy at Rs. 8 per kg and why JDS leader Kumaraswamy, got an assurance from the Centre for buying at Rs 16 per kg, he asked. How many farmers did you give the Rs. 4 you promised to give and how many farmers the factories paid Rs. 8 each, he asked. Farmers never faced such hardships during our term and mango was sold at Rs 25 to 29 per kg. But why was there a slump in one year after the coalition government took over? Why the pulp factories that should open from May 10 to 15 did not start buying this year. When the stock came out at once the supply was high, resulting in a fall in prices.
Such an artificial situation was created only to benefit your close associates, like Galla factory and Srini Foods.
Farmers did not get MSP for paddy, chilli, cotton, jowar, sorghum, sorghum, millets, peas, maize, sajja, ragi, banana, onion, sugarcane, cocoa, tobacco, and mango this year. Be it chilli, tobacco or mango, the government did not procure even a single unit, which shows its lack of sincerity as it has no integrity.
During our term, we spent Rs. 7,800 crore on the purchase of crops other than paddy by setting up a price stabilization fund with Rs. 3,000 crore. Such a fund is missing now and there is no trace of VM APP. Last year the government failed to give the promised Rs 20,000 to farmers and this year, farmers are still waiting while in our term farmers were getting the amount on time.
Input subsidy has been abandoned, along with free crop insurance, services of RBKs. When your failures are questioned, you brand the farmers as anti-social elements, he said.
Naidu betrayed farmers, stifles dissent with false cases
