Though minister Revanth Reddy, his cabinet colleagues and Congress leaders are claiming that they have fulfilled one of their major election promises by executing loan waiver before August 15, farmers at the ground-level seem to be on a warpath throughout the state.
At several places, Congress MLAs and leaders are experiencing wrath of discontented farmers alleging that the loan waiver was not extended to all farmers. Now, it became the turn of the Agriculture Minister Thummala Nageswara Rao to face the wrath of the farmers.
However, the senior minister seems to have lost his patience and abused them for questioning him over the government’s failure in this regard. He allegedly went to the extent of manhandling farmers.
Farmers and Left parties activists in large numbers went to the Khammam collectorate on Tuesday in large numbers protesting against incomplete loan waiver and demanded an unconditional loan waiver.
Incidentally, Minister Thummala Nageswara Rao was leaving the Collectorate after a meeting with the district Collector at that time and farmers surrounded him at the main gate. He got out of his car to speak with the protesting farmers.
But, he was irked when the farmers started shouting slogans even before he spoke with them. Then he refused to speak. However, CPI leader B Hemanth Rao pacified him and requested to give clarity over the crop loan waiver issue.
The Minister, who spoke harshly with the CPI leader, also tried to grab an activist who continued shouting slogans and one of the protesters questioned the Minister why he was abusing them.
Later addressing the gathering, Nageswara Rao assured that crop loans up to Rs.2 lakh would be waived and any loan amount above that limit had to be cleared by the farmers to regularise the loan and to avail a fresh loan.
Later Ruthu Sangham leaders, who held the protest, deplored that only loans of 40 percent farmers were waived in the district, while loans of 60 percent farmers were yet to be waived. They said that there was confusion among the farmers as Ministers were making contradictory statements over the issue every day.