Hyderabad, December 29: BJP senior leader M Venkaiah Naidu, party state president G Kishan Reddy and other leaders were arrested by the police while they were marching on the Secretariat from Indira Park to draw the attention of the government to the problems of farmers.
Earlier, the leaders, addressing the demonstrators at Indira Park, came down heavily on the Central and state governments accusing them of neglecting framers who were hit by untimely rains. If the farmers were neglected, there would be a serious threat to the food security, Naidu warned and said that nearly one lakh farmers had committed suicide in the past few years as per official records.
“When the BJPled NDA was in power at the Centre AICC president Sonia Gandhi visited Anantapur district and expressed sympathy for farmers and criticised the NDA. Today the same leader is maintaining silence on farmers’ issue when her own party is in power at the centre and in the state,’’ he said.
The meeting demanded that the crop loss be declared a national calamity and aid provided to every farmer at the rate of Rs 6,000 an acre.
–Agencies