TDP MLA Gorantla Butchaiah Chowdary, who is the party's deputy floor leader in the Assembly, demanded that the State government should rescind it's anti-farmer policies, including the decision to effectively shift the capital from Amaravati to Visakhapatnam under the guise of decentralisation, by taking a cue from the Central government beating a hasty retreat on the controversial three farm laws.
"The news of the Central government repealing the farm laws has just come in. The State government should also take back its decisions that are detrimental to farmers", he insisted.
Giving a retort to the demand which Mr. Chowdary raised in the Assembly session on the morning of November 19, Agriculture Minister K. Kannababu said the YSR Congress government considered those cultivating various crops as farmers whereas the TDP viewed people who did real estate business in Amaravati as farmers, whom it cheated by taking their precious lands purportedly for the development of a world-class greenfield capital city which never fructified.
Mr. Kannababu said that former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu kept pending the payment of huge amounts of input subsidy and other benefits to farmers while rolling out various populist schemes just before the 2019 elections. It was only after the YSRC came to power that the farmers got to see a glimmer of hope amidst the crisis in which they were stuck, the Minister asserted.