It is a known fact that Telangana Congress party uses the trump card of ‘farmer’ in its crisis time when nothing works. The same thing happened this time too, as politically to get advantage during the recent Rahul Gandhi’s tour in Telangana.
Under the banner of Rythu Sangharshana Sabha, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Telangana to sympathise with farmers, who otherwise are progressing in the State. Instead, the age-old Congress party, now reduced to nothing more than a big regional party, should introspect on its contribution to the agricultural sector and welfare of farmers over the last 70 years. The Congress should know that it has done no good to any sector during its governance in India.
In spite of availability of abundant water through rivers, the Congress party never cared to develop irrigation infrastructure on these rivers for the welfare of the farming community. India has a capacity of 70,000 TMC but not even half this capacity is used to save the country from drought. All this is courtesy Congress party and its visionless leadership.
The Congress stands as a big failure in its 60 years of governance in the country. If we look into its rule between 2004 and 2014, during UPA I and UPA II, all that the country witnessed was lakhs of farmer suicides in places like Vidharba and Telangana.
According to National Crimes Record Bureau, more than 1,58,000 farmers committed suicide during this period. Not a single special relief package was announced when farmers faced crisis in India.
The people of Telangana fought for a separate Statehood for decades. One of the main reasons was agrarian distress caused due to bias in river water sharing with the Telangana region. After the formation of the State, under the leadership of present Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, Telangana started to progress in all sectors.
The TRS government in Telangana has given top priority to agriculture and allied sector, which yielded good results over the last seven years.The Telangana government spent more than Rs. 3.80 lakh crore towards agriculture and the allied sector.
With the construction of Kaleshwaram, irrigation water has become abundant, resulting in increase in agricultural output. Within no time, parched fields transformed into green cover, and Telangana emerged as the new rice bowl of India. All this happened within a span of less than eight years.
During 2014-15, Telangana’s contribution of grains to FCI was 24.30 lakh tonnes. And by 2020-21, the state’s contribution grew upto 141 lakh tonnes, recording a whopping 480% growth.
The Telangana govt is providing financial assistance in the form of Rythu Bandhu scheme and is also giving security through Rythu Bheema scheme, where a farmer’s family receives Rs 5 lakh insurance money upon the demise of the farmer for any reason. Telangana is the only state in the country to provide free 24/7 power to the agricultural sector. The state government has spent Rs 87,000 crore towards free power supply in the last eight years.
Sadly, the Telangana Pradesh Congress Party leaders are now writing letters to the Union government, asking them to pass orders to stop the construction of 4,000 Mega Watt Yadadri Thermal Power Plant.
The Congress Party is staging Rythu Sangharshana Sabha in a state whose farm policies the country celebrates.The Congress party is now remembering the welfare of farmers just to garner political mileage for its dying prospects in the state.
It is ironic that the party conveniently forgets that its 60 years of silence and incompetent governance led the country into deep crisis in every sector. Doing politics in the name of farmers will fetch nothing to Congress. Instead, they should have realized by now that farmers will not believe in parties that play politics by placing the guns on their shoulders.
It is better for the Congress to realize that farmers of this country will never forget and forgive its misrule, especially in a state like Telangana, where farmers collectively fought with their brethren and achieved their dream of statehood. #KhabarLive #hydnews
