HYDERABAD: Alleging a massive scam in the procurement of paddy in Telangana, BJP state president Bandi Sanjay Kumar demanded a judicial inquiry by a sitting High Court judge into the murky episode, if Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao was sincere and if he was really concerned about farmers.
Speaking to reporters here on Sunday, Sanjay lashed out at the Chief Minister for enacting a fresh drama by holding an emergency cabinet meeting at his farmhouse and declaring that he would stage a dharna in New Delhi to pull up the Centre over non-procurement of paddy during rabi season. He suspected that the procurement of paddy in Telangana smacked of a major scam.
“There are reports of large-scale irregularities in paddy procurement by creating fake bills. Earlier also Food Corporation of India (FCI) officials had unearthed a major fake accounts fraud in procurement of 40,000 tonnes of paddy,” he pointed out, adding that similar irregularities were found in Suryapet and Nizamabad also.
“Fake accounts were opened in the names of farmers from neighbouring states. False records were created to show hundreds of acres in the name of a farmer, who does not even have a cent of land. Paddy procured at a cheaper rate from neighbouring states was projected as the produce from Telangana. Rice meant for ration shops is being recycled to show that it is freshly milled rice, thereby swindling thousands of crores,” he alleged.
