Amaravathi, Sept 24: The former minister and senior TDP leader, Mr Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy, on Saturday demanded that the Chief Minister, Mr YS Jagn Mohan Reddy, tender an apology to the farmers of the State for misleading the Assembly by providing wrong statistics on the amount spent for the farming sector.
Mr Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy told media persons here that Mr Jagn has been wasting crores of public money in the shape of advertisements only to spread false propaganda among the people. This amounts to taking the people for a ride, he remarked.
On the closing day of the last Assembly session, the Chief Minister told the House that his Government has spent Rs 1,27,823 cr for ffarmers welfare in the past 40 months. Also, he has released full-page advertisements for the media on the same point in which he also mentioned that Rs 2.39 lakh cr was spent for women which means that totally for both women and farmers he has spent Rs 3,66,836 cr. This is nothing but a false statement, he said.
The TDP senior leader asked as to how the food grain purchase can be shown as an assistance for farmers, and this is for the first time in the country’s history that food grains purchase is shown as an expenditure for farmers welfare. Mr Somireddy also demanded the Government to make it public whether quality power was supplied for nine hours in a day in any part of the State.
He is of the opinion that the State Government did not spend even a single rupee though Rs 1,264 cr was allocated for irrigation in the 2021 budgetary proposals. Mr Jagan is giving all wrong statistics and in fact, the agricultural sector has totally got spoiled during the YSRCP rule, he observed.
Mr Somireddy asked as to why the mega seed park did not take off though certain foreign companies under the sponsorship of Ayova University have come forward with an investment of Rs 650 cr to set up the park at Tangadenchi. The State Government is not paying the dues even after six months to the traders who purchase farm products, he pointed out.
Andhra Pradesh is now in the sixth place in the country in farmers suicides, he said and demanded that the ruling party publish a white paper on the details of the expenditure on farm sector. He said that privilege notices should be served on the Chief Minister for producing wrong statistics and Mr Jagan should tender an apology to the farmers.
Mr Somireddy Chandramohan Reddy regretted that the voice of the TDP members stifled on the floor of the Assembly and no TDP member was allowed to raise the public issues.