Farmers Feel Helpless And Cheated Under TDP  

Nandamuri Cross, Krishna District: Today’s Padayatra proceeded amidst great fanfare, as thousands of people walked alongside me, joining hands and marching shoulder to shoulder expressing their support and solidarity. The more the Telugu Desam government tried to prevent people from meeting and greeting me, the more they came swelling and surging to share their sorrows. The atrocities of the ruling party leaders were elaborated to me once again by the commoners who suffered the most under this repressive TDP regime led by Chandrababu Naidu.

Matangi Satyanarayana, a farmer met me and said, “Sir, I am a common farmer, who used to feel proud to call himself one during your father, the late Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy‘s rule. Agriculture, at that time, was a lucrative occupation for us. Things have changed drastically for the worse now. Without proper irrigation facilities, agriculture has become a losing proposition, but since I have been a farmer all my life, there is nothing else I can do. I feel totally powerless."

He said that no one in the government machinery or the ruling party paid heed to their problems. There was no one they could share their sorrows with. Not a single official ever visited the village nor did any leader try to redress their grievances. “I came here to share my problems with you. I feel very happy and my heart feels lighter, burdened as it was with the weight of sorrows. I feel more optimistic now and look forward to Rajanna Rajyam which I see being ushered in.“

It was a touching experience to meet him. He was a small farmer with simple needs—all that he needed was someone with whom he could share his sorrows. Such were the lives of common citizens here and the only attribute needed to mitigate their suffering was commitment. It would indeed be my good fortune if God bestows upon me the opportunity to touch the lives of the poor and transform them for the better.

Sureddy Srimani met me along with other women and narrated how the sale of rice was replete with irregularities in Buddavaram. They furnished details and proof of how this was taking place. Rice millers and ruling party leaders became increasingly brazen in their ways. She and the other women were furious that in spite of representing the facts to the district collector with concrete proof several times, they were not taken seriously. On the contrary, instead of initiating action, the authorities ridiculed them.

These women pointed out that ruling party leaders in connivance with rice millers were forging the names of daily wage labourers, contract workers housewives and others. Not even the names of the dead were spared. They were all being shown as tenant farmers and after obtaining false documents from the revenue department, were making crores of rupees by recycling cheap rice brought from neighbouring states, and supplying it to the government. The black market was flourishing, they pointed out.

Crores of rupees of public money was then distributed among themselves, these women said. In the government documents submitted to the government, they stated that they had harvested the crop and furnished documents along with survey numbers! And what is reality was to be found in the area mentioned in those survey numbers. The Eluru Canal, ponds, lakes, schools, graveyards, the Panchayat office and apartments! This shows the Himalayan Heights to which corruption has reached under the TDP government led by Chandrababu Naidu! It is also a sad reflection on the connivance of government officials in this entire murky business. The sheer audacity which underlines these activities is shocking, to say the least. They told me that this was true of all points of sale across the state. One can imagine the magnitude and scale of this scam!

I have a question for the chief minister —the farmer finds himself wedged between the vagaries of nature on the one hand and the brazen loot being indulged in by your followers openly cheating and robbing him! Under such circumstances, if agriculture is in a state of ferment, confusion and turmoil, is it surprising?