Telangana tenant farmers protest for state recognition, announce Praja Darbar on December 4
The farmers asked the government to fulfil the promises the Congress party made during its Assembly election campaign, especially the Six Guarantees
By Newsmeter Network Published on 30 Nov 2024 1:06 PM GMT
Samyukta Kisan Morcha leader Vissa Kiran (Center)
Hyderabad: Major organisations of farmers, agricultural workers and tenant farmers under the joint banner of Samyukta Kisan Morcha, Telangana, came together to demand that the State government immediately do justice to tenant farmers.
The farmers asked the government to fulfil the promises the Congress party made during its Assembly election campaign, especially the Six Guarantees.
December 4 meeting at Indira Park
In a press meeting on Saturday at Basheerbagh Press Club, members of Samyukta Kisan Morcha announced that on December 4, hundreds of tenant farmers will gather in Hyderabad at Indira Park Dharna Chowk to voice their demands at a public hearing and a dharna to be organised by Samyukta Kisan Morcha.
The tenant farmers from various districts will present their situation before a jury of eminent citizens including Prof G Haragopal, followed by the verdict from the jury and voicing of demands by all the leaders of farmer unions and agricultural worker unions.
āOpen letter from CM Revanth to farmersā
The leaders participating in the press meet released posters of the December 4 program. They also provided to the media copies of an open letter written by chief minister A Revanth Reddy to the Telangana tenant farmers on September 13, 2023, when he was the TPCC president before the Assembly elections.
In that letter, he promised that the Congress government would do complete justice to the tenant farmers and stated that Congress had earlier brought the Land Licensed Cultivators Act of 2011 to give identification cards to tenant farmers. The farmers said that in the letter CM Revanth promised that the Congress government would identify all tenant farmers and provide them crop loans and various schemes including Rythu Bharosa.
āWe are questioning the chief minister and the ministers who are organising the Rythu Panduga farmer festival in Palamuru today ā why are tenant farmers not a part of the farmer festival? The real farmer festival will happen only when more than 22 lakh tenant farmers in the State are identified and included in government schemes,ā said the leaders of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha. They said that 75 per cent of the Telangana farmer suicides are tenant farmers, and only by identifying tenant farmers and providing them full support can we achieve a Telangana free of farmer suicides.
Support to tenant farmers
The farmers stated that according to the minutes of the public consultations held by the Cabinet Sub-Committee on Rythu Bharosa under deputy chief minister Bhatti Vikramarka, a large number of farmers and local leaders said that support should be provided to tenant farmers who have land under cultivation, as per RTI responses obtained by Rythu Swarajya Vedika.
The leaders demanded that the Land Licensed Cultivators Act, brought by the then Congress government in 2011, should be implemented, applications taken from tenant farmers, and LEC identity cards issued to them, and they should be included in all government schemes, bank loans, and crop procurement.
Participants in the press meeting on behalf of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha State Committee were Vissa Kiran (Rythu Swarajya Vedika), T Sagar (Telangana Rythu Sangam), Prabhulingam (Telangana Rashtra Rythu Sangham), V Prabhakar (AIPKS), Venkataramulu (Telangana Agricultural Workersā Union), Jakkula Venkataiah (Telangana Raitanga Samiti), B Kondal (Rythu Swarajya Vedika), M Shobhan and Shivudu.
