Farmers Movement Archive

TRS to vote against ‘anti-farmer’ bills

HYDERABAD: Terming the three farm reform bills brought in by the NDA government as ‘antifarmer’, TRS president and Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Saturday asked his party MPs to vote against them in the Rajya Sabha. Observing that the bills would hurt farmers and benefit corporates, Rao told the TRS parliamentary party leader K Keshav Rao to strongly oppose them in the Upper House. Lok Sabha, through a voice vote, passed the farm bills on Thursday, the same day that Shiromani Akali Dal’s Harsimrat Kaur Badal resigned from the Union cabinet. TRS had opposed the bills in the Lok Sabha too. TRS leaders alleged these bills would help no one except big corporates and destroy farmers’ livelihood. These legislations should be opposed at all costs: KCRKCR wondered how farmers could take their produce long distances by spending huge sums on transport and get a good price when the Centre says farmers can sell produce anywhere in the country. “These bills are nothing but a sugar-coated pill. These legislations should be opposed at all costs,” the CM said. TRS parliamentary party leaders Nama Nageswara Rao and K Keshava Rao told reporters in Delhi that the Centre had permitted import of 50 lakh tonnes of maize and reduced the import duty hurriedly. Nageswara Rao said the TRS opposed the bills in the Lok Sabha but the NDA government ensured their passage as it has majority. He said farmers in Telangana, AP, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka will suffer the most with these legislations. The CM said these bills, in reality, will enable traders to go anywhere in the country to buy the produce. “The bills will also help the corporate lobby to expand their businesses and pave the way for entry of more private traders,” he said. Since the bills went against the interests of farmers, KCR said his party would vote against the legislations in the Rajya Sabha and instructed his party MPs to do so. The TRS president said import duty on maize is 50%, which the Centre had reduced it by 15% and wanted to import one crore tonnes of maize. “The government has already procured 75 lakh tonnes of maize. For whose benefit, the import duty has been reduced. When the country is going through an economic crisis, how did the Centre take such a decision. Maize is cultivated in a big way in the country. If we reduce the import duty on maize, what will happen to our own maize producers,” KCR sought to know.

The Times of India

2020-09-20

Hyderabad