Hyderabad: Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday launched a scathing critique of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) both at the Centre and the state.
Here are four key points from his speech:
- Speaking on the Center’s unwillingness to buy rice from Telangana, KCR remarked, “What’s all the noise about? All we are asking you is whether you will buy rice from our state or not. Food Corporation of India has all the control over Godowns in this country. Its the Centre’s responsibility to procure rice from the state and protect farmers’ interests. But they are clearly not competent enough. Our delegation went to Delhi and met the concerned cabinet minister 50 days ago. It’s been 50 days and there is no response.
2. KCR then spoke about the overall situation in the country from ongoing Farmer protests to India’s position in the Global Hunger Index. “This is not just about Telangana, this is the cry of farmers from across the country. They are fighting against the anti-farmer laws brought in by the centre in Delhi for a long. Cars were run over them in Uttar Pradesh and here it’s this injustice. All they demand is the right price for their produce and clarity. The Government at the centre today is incompetent in utilizing the vast resources and it’s important that we fight against it. We are at 101 out of the 116 countries on the Global Hunger Index. We are even worse when compared to Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. We should be ashamed of this. People aren’t beggars. It’s time we fight against this mentality.’’
3. This was followed by attacking the opposition BJP in the state and the centre for indulging in doublespeak and political drama. “Half of this country relies on agriculture. With such sheer negligence, will you let farmers live or not? Rather than spending lakhs of crores on Farmers and their welfare, they want to sell everything to private. We demand that you buy rice from our state. If not we will fight against your incompetence and doublespeak. This is political drama over unsold piles of rice. We will pile up all of it in front of the BJP office.”
4. The TRS supremo reiterated that political chairs don’t mean much to them when compared to the people of Telangana and blamed the Bharatiya Janatha Party for ‘blackmailing’ people into not questioning them. “BJP is lying. If you ask questions, they character assassinate you on WhatsApp and Facebook. They put cases on you. They did not fulfil the promises made to Telangana. We don’t care about political chairs. We threw them away for Telangana statehood in the past and we are ready to fight again for our farmers. This fight starts with rice and then it goes on for the country. Today is the beginning. We will not back down. People’s lives are more important, politics is for later’’ he said.