Hyderabad, May 22 (IANS) Police detained Telangana Rakshana Sena (TRS) leader Kalvakuntla Kavitha and several party workers at Telangana Secretariat here on Friday when they were staging a protest over the problems faced by farmers.

Alleging that the state government is acting with negligence in procurement of paddy from farmers, Kavitha and her supporters sat in front of the Secretariat.

Holding placards and raising slogans, they demanded that the government expedite paddy procurement and pay bonus to farmers.

Police personnel forcibly removed Kavitha and other protestors including several women to the waiting police vehicles and whisked them away.

Kavitha was taken to Falaknuma Police Station.

She told media persons that Chief Minister Revanth Reddy is not bothered by the severe distress faced by farmers in the state.

Kavitha said that farmers are in agony as paddy, jowar, and red gram crops are not being procured. “It is heartbreaking to see farmers dying at procurement centres,” she alleged.

“We staged a dharna at the secretariat demanding that this government come to its senses and do good for the farmers,” she claimed.

The TRS leader demanded that the government procure the farmers’ paddy immediately. She alleged that during the last two-and-a-half-years the Chief Minister did not hold a single review meeting on agriculture.

She said the government should purchase the crops painstakingly grown by the farmers over six months and come to their rescue. Scorched by the blazing heat and battered by rains, they are breathing their last in the fields, she said.

Kavitha said that farmers are waiting for the procurement process, drying out rain-soaked paddy, maize, cotton flowers, and jowar affected by untimely rains.

She alleged that authorities were deducting weight on flimsy grounds. Purchases are being delayed under the pretext of moisture. Even as millers deceive farmers by labeling A-grade grains as B-grade, there is no one to take notice, she said.

“Even now, the Chief Minister should come to his senses, visit the procurement centres in person, and provide reassurance to the farmers. The Telangana Rakshana Sena is demanding that every ripened grain be purchased,” she said.

–IANS

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