Hyderabad: Congress stages stir over youth & farm suicides

Hyderabad: Congress party leaders held a silent protest programme at the Martyrs Memorial at Gunpark in the city on Saturday. They displayed placards urging the farmers and the unemployed youth not to commit suicides.

Former PCC presidents V Hanumantha Rao, Ponnala Laxmaiah, All India Kisan Congress national vice-president M Kodanda Reddy, former minister S Chandrasekhar and others took part in the protest programm.

Speaking on the occasion, Ponnala Laxmaiah said that they had taken up the protest programme to instill confidence among the unemployed youth and the farmers of the state that the Congress would stand by them. He said that it was the Congress party that had increased the minimum support price of paddy crop from Rs 550 to Rs 1,500. He made it clear that their party was not craving for power but would always crave for public service. He asked the state government if it had paid crop damages to the farmers during the last seven years and also it if it had thought about the woes of the tenant farmers in the state.

Kisan Congress leader Kodanda Reddy said that only the agriculture sector of the country was active during the Covid-induced lockdown. He alleged that CM KCR and PM Narendra Modi were adopting anti-farmer policies. He criticised that the governments were indifferent even as the crops cultivated by the farmers were damaged due to the recent untimely rains. He rued the farmers who sustained losses were now bowing at the feet of ministers seeking compensation, but the government remained apathetic and refused to pay any compensation. He also pointed out that the state government had not yet cleared the farm loans of the farmers even after making a promise. VH said that it was reprehensible that the state was witnessing the deaths of farmers and unemployed youth.