Praja Sankalpa Yatra Diary, Day 119: No Farmer Should Ever Meet Such Fate
Narasaraopet, Guntur district: The Padayatra moved through Chilakaluripeta and Narasaraopet constituencies this morning. Along every step of the way, people narrated the atrocities being inflicted upon them by members of the ruling party. The sheer scale of torture the masses are experiencing on a day-to-day basis at the hands of TDP followers, was shocking, to say the least.
The lady Sarpanch of Gangannapalem, Mannava Nalanamma came and met me. Her narration of the situation on the ground left me stunned—“Anna, YSRCP enjoys complete majority in our panchayat. However, we have been rendered totally powerless by the Janmabhoomi committee members. We have been reduced to dummies while TDP leaders lord over us. They are not interested in doing anything for the people. The TDP men have stopped pensions for about 70 people and withdrew my power of signing cheques on four occasions. They destroyed the crops grown in fields which we have taken on lease. They create hurdles to prevent us from doing any developmental work. We had to go to the court nine times. On all occasions we secured orders in our favour. The TDP men have scant respect for court orders and continue to heap atrocities on us and are tormenting us in every possible way, politically as well as at a personal level. The battle against these monsters is wearing us out.”
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Her narration troubled me deeply—it is a reflection on the TDP government’s attitude towards panchayat raj as well as women’s empowerment. On the one hand, the TDP pays lip service to women’s empowerment, and on the other, when it comes to ground reality, this is how women are treated, with contempt and disregard. Realising that this lady Sarpanch cannot be countered on a political level, they are subjecting her and other members of the panchayat, to vindictive harassment of the worst kind. This is the height of the ruling party’s insensitivity towards people in general, and women in particular.
I was deeply troubled to learn about the suicide of a farmer in the Chilakaluripeta constituency, this morning. For years now, Siva Suryanarayana had been dependent on agriculture. Unfortunately for him, for the past four years he had been put to grave losses, also because nature had been unkind to him. The worst aspect of it all was the insensitivity shown by the TDP government. Torn between an apathetic government and cruel nature, this poor farmer took his own life. He had taken a piece of land on lease. For the past four years he had been suffering losses in agriculture and to support himself and his family through an alternative source of income, he took to sheep-rearing. To his misfortune, the sheep fell prey to a disease and he suffered huge losses. He had borrowed Rs.2 lakhs for this. He had expected the government to fulfil its promise of assistance, but no support was forthcoming from the TDP government. Last year he cultivated chilly on 15 acres and suffered losses because the government did not come to the assistance of farmers through a support price. This year he cultivated cotton on 10 acres, but as fate decreed, a pink colour pest ruined the crop completely. The interest amount on his bank loan of Rs.2 lakhs kept mounting. The loans he took from private moneylenders added to his misery. With no government support or assistance, overcome by depression, he took his life consuming pesticide in his field, the place dearest to his heart. No farmer should suffer such fate. My resolve to make agriculture profitable for the farmer supporting him in every possible way got strengthened further.
Konanki Pallavi came to see me with her three daughters. The clothes these children wore were in our party colours and bore the welfare schemes put in place by my father, the late Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy, and the Navathnalu which I have envisioned. One of the children, Nagavardhini, underwent a surgery thanks to Arogyasri. “We know you will also serve the masses of the state in the exemplary way your father did, Anna,” her mother, Konanki Pallavi said. It is this confidence reposed in me by the common man, which spurs me on every single day. This is where I draw my strength from.
I have a question for the chief minister—the TDP poll manifesto proclaimed—“the 73rd amendment to the Constitution will be implemented with sincerity and that the 29 clauses in the Eleventh Schedule related to Panchayat Raj would be implemented in a practical way. Is it not true that panchayat raj is being implemented in a manner which is totally contrary to this promise of yours? Has your government not watered down the panchayat raj system in Andhra Pradesh? Is it not true that Janmabhoomi committees have been foisted as extra-constitutional bodies on hapless villagers?
