There is no need for the state government to buy agricultural products, as new agricultural laws were being implemented across the country, allowing farmers to sell their harvest anywhere, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said , giving a radical turn to his previous opposition to the same laws. KCR had previously supported Bharat Bandh against Center-backed agricultural laws.
The announcement comes days after the CM met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Interior Minister Amit Shah in Delhi. Previously, CM’s party had voted against the legislation in Parliament.
The decision that the process of selling and buying agricultural products would now be left to the market was made at an official high-level meeting called by the CM on Sunday night.
“The government can no longer do it. It is not a business organization or a merchant. He is not a rice miller or a dal miller. Selling and buying are not the responsibility of the government. It is not possible to install a shopping center in the town starting next year, ”reads an official statement from the prime minister’s office.
However, the CM ordered that the buying and selling of basic products in the agricultural markets be done correctly. He suggested that farmers should not bring all their produce to markets in one go, but in phases to get a better price.
Over the past season, the CM office said, the government had established village purchasing centers and purchased all agricultural products on humanitarian grounds to ensure that farmers did not suffer losses due to the coronavirus pandemic.
He said that the government had incurred losses amounting to Rs 7.5 billion due to the purchase of rice, sorghum, corn, red gram, bengal gram and sunflower. Although the government had paid the Minimum Subsistence Price (MSP) for these crops, it had to sell them at the lowest prices on the market, as there was no demand for these crops.
Until recently, the prime minister vigorously opposed agricultural laws, saying they would harm farmers’ interests. In September, when the legislation was introduced in Parliament, the TRS president ordered his party’s MPs to vote against the bills.
KCR, as the prime minister is popularly known, told his party MPs that while the bills said that farmers could sell their produce anywhere in the country, they would actually allow traders to go anywhere in the country. to buy them. The bills would also help the corporate lobby to spread to all corners of the country, he had alleged.
On December 8, TRS leaders and cadres, led by the party chairman and KCR’s son KT Rama Rao, participated in Bharat Bandh (national lockdown), opposing the new laws on agriculture.
The TRS president also announced that he would hold a national conclave in the third week of December and invite all anti-BJP forces to protest the government’s anti-peasant and anti-labor policies. He said he would build a national consensus against the new farm laws.
“We cannot afford to confront the Center at this time, because it will affect the interests of the state,” said a former TRS deputy, who currently occupies a key position in the government, on condition of anonymity.
Telangana BJP State President Bandi Sanjay welcomed the TRS government’s change of position on farm laws.
“At least now, KCR has opened its eyes and understood the reality about the benefits of the new laws,” he said.
Kisan Congressional Senior Leader and Congressional National Vice President M Kodanda Reddy lambasted the prime minister for turning the farm laws 180 degrees. “It is regrettable that the government is avoiding its responsibility to buy agricultural products in the MSP,” he said.
Reddy claimed that KCR had changed its mind after its recent meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Interior Minister Amit Shah.
“He didn’t even bother to call thousands of farmers who were waving on the Delhi borders in defiance of the winter cold,” he criticized.
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