Hyderabad: The Winter Session of Parliament, which will commence from Monday, will be crucial for both the state as well as the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti, going by Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao’s tough stand against the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre.
The TRS supremo on Sunday directed his Members of Parliament to fight against the unclear and often confusing procurement policy of the Centre.
Speaking at the TRS parliamentary party meeting, the Chief Minister said welfare of the farming community is of paramount interest to his party, and wanted the MPs to demand for the uniform national food grain procurement policy making best use of the winter session.
Though the TRS was never a part of the Central coalition, the party, as Chandrashekar Rao admitted, has been supporting it on several occasions. Even on the demonetisation, the Chief Minister, after being critical of the move initially, went on to support it.
The Chief Minister, however, declared a war against the Centre in recent times when his efforts to achieve crop diversification by promoting alternative crops to paddy were politicised. The state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party gave a call to farmers to grow paddy, heightening the friction between the two parties leading to the Chief Minister coming out openly against the Prime Minister and his policies.
Stating that the farmers in Telangana state are in a dilemma following the stand taken by the Central government on the issue of paddy procurement, the Chief Minister blamed the BJP government at the Centre, which he claims, was supposed to be procure at least 90 lakh metric tonnes of paddy from the Telangana state but the government is willing to procure only 60 lakh metric tonnes.
Demanding that the Central government bring a national policy on farmers’ issues, the Chief Minister directed the MPs to even stall the proceedings if need be to express their protest in both Houses to draw the attention of the government towards the farmers’ issues.
