The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) on Wednesday, April 6, held road blockades on highways at various places across Telangana as part of protests demanding that the Union government procure paddy produced during the rabi season. State Tourism and Sports Minister V Srinivas Goud participated in the protest held at Bhutpur on the Bengaluru highway, while Forest and Endowments Minister A Indrakaran Reddy expressed solidarity with the protesters on the Nagpur highway.
TRS MLC Palla Rajeshwar Reddy held a road blockade at Choutuppal on the Hyderabad-Vijayawada highway. Speaking during the protest, Indrakaran Reddy said the TRS will fight till the NDA government purchased the paddy produced in Telangana. The road blockades were part of a series of protests called by the TRS demanding that the Union government procure the paddy harvested in the state.
The TRS had earlier held demonstrations in mandal headquarters on April 4. TRS working president and state IT Minister KT Rama Rao has announced that the party would conduct agitations at all district headquarters under the leadership of ministers and TRS MLAs on April 7. On April 11, TRS is expected to stage a protest in Delhi with state ministers, TRS MLAs and other public representatives attending it.
The TRS' protests came amid a row and war of words between TRS and BJP over paddy procurement. Senior BJP leader P Muralidhar Rao on Tuesday accused the TRS of indulging in a misinformation campaign against the NDA government over the paddy procurement issue.
"It is completely false propaganda by the TRS government, under the leadership of K Chandrasekhar Rao, on the paddy procurement issue. It's a politically motivated strategy to make it a 'Delhi versus Telangana' (narrative),” Muralidhar Rao had said. Noting that Telangana stood second among various states in the country in rice procurement, he sought to know how TRS could claim that Telangana was discriminated against by the Union government.
The Telangana government had given an undertaking that it would not supply parboiled rice to the Union government, Muralidhar Rao had said. Union Food Minister Piyush Goyal on April 1 attacked the ruling TRS for "misleading" the farmers of the state over paddy procurement, saying it should fulfil its responsibility towards the peasants. He had stressed that the Union government has always been buying raw rice from Telangana as it does from Punjab.