Hyderabad: Nizamabad Lok Sabha member Kalvakuntla Kavitha on Monday said the Congress and the BJP had provoked turmeric and red jowar farmers of Nizamabad district to file nomination papers for the Lok Sabha elections in an attempt to besmirch the TRS’ image.
Asked about as many as 242 farmers filing their nomination papers in the district, Ms Kavitha said that both the Opposition parties had no issues to raise for the electioneering, and therefore they had been provoking the farmers.
Speaking with this newspaper during and after her hectic campaign schedule, Ms Kavitha said that in her five-year term as MP, she had fulfilled all the promises that she had made to the people of her constituency except for setting up of the Turmeric Board.
She said she strived hard to get it constituted but it did not materialise because of the non-cooperation of the BJP-led NDA government at
the Centre.
She had tried to convince the Centre to set up the board as turmeric required special attention because it was labour intensive from sowing till harvest, and Nizamabad was among the top turmeric-growing centres but the government had not yielded.
“I introduced a private Bill in the Lok Sabha for setting up the Turmeric Board and succeeded in getting support of four Chief Ministers to put pressure on the Centre,” Ms Kavitha said.
She said that it was on her insistence that the TRS leadership had appointed her on the parliamentary committee on commerce to pursue the setting up of a separate board for turmeric. Congress president Rahul Gandhi had recognised the need to set up such a board but the BJP never responded.
She said that she had succeeded in ensuring the completion of the Nizamabad-Peddapalli railway line, providing potable drinking water at the doorsteps of the people and doubling the area under irrigation.
