Turmeric, red jowar give new hue to LS battlefield
NIZAMABAD: Turmeric and red jowar prices have become crucial for political parties in the upcoming Parliament elections. The ruling TRS, Opposition Congress and BJP leaders are trying to garner the support of farmers in this regard. Aggressive farmers have decided to file en masse nominations for the MP seat to register their protest.
Turmeric and red jowar is being cultivated on a large scale in Nizamabad district. The produce is transported across the nation and exported to foreign countries too. But, steep fall in prices of both the products is worrying the farming community. In this context, farmers decided to pressurise political parties by filing enmasse nomination in the elections.
It is noted that the price of turmeric per quintal has fallen to Rs 5,000 from Rs 17,000. Earlier, the state government paid Rs 2,300 per quintal of red jowar, but the price now stands at Rs 1700. As a result, farmers are forced to incur losses on both the crops. Market intervention by the state government would rescue them from the crisis of prices, farmers felt.
Farmers of Armoor, Balkonda, Nizamabad rural, Korutla and Jagitial have intensified their agitation in the last few days demanding remunerative price for turmeric and red jowar. However, targeting sitting MP, Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter K. Kavitha, farmers got 143 nomination papers from the returning officer for the last three days. They are planning to file nomination papers by paying Rs 25,000 deposit for each set of nomination.
Reacting to this, Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao and MP K. Kavitha urged farmers to be patient on the prices issue. “We are planning to rescue the farmers from the turmeric and red jowar price crisis,” they said. Food processing units, involvement of women self-help groups would benefit the farmers to get minimum support price, they assured.
Interestingly, MP Kavitha called upon farmers to file 1000 nominations in Varanasi and Amethi parliamentary constituencies. “Not only Nizamabad, farmers should come forward to file nominations at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi’s constituencies to draw the attention of the nation on the price issue,” she dared.
