Paddy issue: TRS to intensify stir

Party plans protests from April 4 to 11; to move privilege motion against Piyush Goyal for misleading Parliament

As part of intensifying its struggle against the BJP government at the Centre on the issue of rabi/yasangi paddy procurement in the State, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has decided to expose the double standards of the Centre and State BJP leaders on the issue by staging protests from gram panchayat level to Parliament from April 4 to 11.

Asking the farming community to partake in the protests stating that they are being organised by TRS on their behalf, working president of the party and Minister for IT, Industries and Municipal Administration K.T. Rama Rao said protest ‘deekshas’ would be held in all mandal centres on April 4 with a demand to the Centre to procure entire paddy produced this rabi season in the State. Party ranks, mandal-level elected representatives, legislators and others would participated in the protest.

TRS would stage protest road blockades on the Nagpur, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Vijayawada highways on April 6 and on April 7, besides, protests would be held at 32 district headquarter centres. On April 8, TRS ranks would burn effigies of the Centre in all the 12,769 gram panchayats, and request farmers to hoist black flags on their houses to express their discontentment with the Centre on the paddy procurement issue and to register protest against the insulting remarks made by Union Food and Public Distribution Minister Piyush Goyal.

Taking to fight to the national capital, all Ministers, legislators, Members of Parliament, chairpersons of Zilla Parishads, District Cooperative Central Banks, District Cooperative Marketing Societies, Municipalities (ULBs), State government corporations, Rythu Bandhu Samithi and TRS district presidents, party’s State executive members would stage a protest as part of the 5-tier protest programme, Mr. Rama Rao said.

Attributing the present situation to the mindless attitude of State BJP leaders, Mr. Rama Rao played videos of speeches made by State unit president and MP Bandi Sanjay and Union Minister G. Kishan Reddy, wherein they told farmers that it was their responsibility to make the Centre procure entire paddy produced in rabi irrespective of it being processed as raw or parboiled rice. He stated that they gave the assurance while asking farmers to go for paddy cultivation itself and not to pay attention to State government plea against growing paddy.

Mr. Rama Rao accused Mr. Goyal of misleading not only the farming community but Parliament too on the export of parboiled rice while making a statement that there was no demand for parboiled rice overseas and the Centre could not export such rice procured under the Food Security Act. However, the fact remains that the Centre had exported about 1 crore tonnes of parboiled rice to several countries during the last two years, the TRS working president said and asked whether the Centre could not amend the Act, if need be.

The TRS would move a privilege motion against Mr. Goyal for misleading the Parliament on the export of rice procured under the Food Security Act and exhibited documents showing the rice exports made by the Centre during the last two years.