Farmers dump turmeric in front of Nizamabad MP's house

Hyderabad, May 8:  Some turmeric farmers in Telangana's Nizamabad district on Sunday dumped turmeric produce in front of the residence of BJP MP Dharmapuri Arvind as a mark of protest over his failure to fulfill the promise of turmeric board.

Arvind had promised the farming community in the Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections that if elected as MP, he would get the turmeric board sanctioned to the district and that he would get proper minimum support prices fixed for both turmeric and red jowar.

He had even signed a non-judicial (bond) stamp paper stating that if elected to the Parliament, he would get a turmeric board in five days.

Farmers alleged that even after three years, the Nizamabad MP failed to fulfill his promise.

They said in the last three years, the BJP MP could only get an allocation of Rs 1.92 crore for close to one lakh turmeric producing farmers. If divided among all farmers, it boils down to less than Rs 200.

Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) leader and former MP from Nizamabad, K. Kavitha had last week claimed that a reply under RTI exposed Arvind's false claims on Turmeric Board.

Kavitha, who is a member of Telangana Legislative Council and daughter of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, alleged that over 90,000 turmeric farmers spread over one lakh acres of land were cheated by the BJP.

The RTI revealed that mere Rs 190 were allocated per farmer in 2020-2021, Rs 124 in 2021 and nothing in 2022-2023.