TRS, BJP leaders spar over chilli row

Hyderabad: The chilli farmers’ crisis has led to war of words between the ruling TRS and opposition BJP leaders in the State. However, all these three years, the TRS has been supportive of the programmes of the BJP-led government at the Centre.

Earlier, the ruling TRS party always targeted the Congress and TDP; and not even viewed the BJP as opposition. But the issue of chilli farmers made the TRS and BJP leaders to lock horns. The TRS leaders, including the ministers, attacked the BJP leaders for their inaction to solve the chilli farmers’ crisis.

It has become a routine practice of targeting each other at press conferences on daily basis. The TRS leaders suggested the state BJP leaders, including the Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, to fight it out with the Central government to provide MSP (minimum support price) to the
farmers.

The Centre recently approved Market Intervention scheme for providing support price of Rs 6,250 per quintal of chillies and also deciding to procure 33,700 metric tonnes of red chilli. However, the Marketing Minister T Harish Rao called the announcement as a big joke. He alleged that the BJP leaders have no idea about the agriculture produce and asked them to fight in New Delhi.

The BJP leaders countered and alleged that the marketing minister had failed in performing his duties properly. BJP spokesperson Krishna Sagar Rao said that the Minister T Harish Rao has no idea about the farmers’ produce in the State. He has also said that the minister is poor at calculations.

Referring to the statements of Harish Rao that there was production of 70 lakh metric tonnes of chilli in Telangana, the BJP leader said that the production, as per State Agriculture secretary, was 70,000 metric tonnes. The minister don’t know that one metric tonne is equal to ten quintals, said the BJP leader. He also said that there was no MSP for the commercial crop like chilli.

The national leadership of BJP has been focusing on Telangana and the party sees better opportunity to develop the party as a force in the State by 2019 elections. The national leadership has asked the party leaders to go out openly against the anti-people policies of the government.

Political analysts said that the BJP leadership in the State sees the chilli crisis as a best weapon against the government and started cornering the government. “The attack by our leaders resulted in counter attack by the TRS leaders, which proves that the State government is under pressure. Our party would now expose the government one after other,” said a senior BJP leader.

The TRS has been supportive of the BJP government at national level and supported various legislations in Parliament. The Union ministers too had appreciated the State government programmes. The party leader in Lok Sabha Jitender Reddy had said that the TRS would support BJP’s candidate in President’s election if the State gets benefits.

Karimnagar MP B Vinod Kumar told The Hans India that the party has yet to decide on the support to the NDA candidate. He said that appropriate decision would be taken as and when the issue comes.