Amaravati: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Tuesday said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), under the guidance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah, has become a corrupt party.
Addressing the state assembly, Naidu said, “This is not the BJP of old times. This is the BJP of Modi and Shah, this is a corrupt BJP. The NDA government has cheated the farmers. We will never do that. We are working for the development of agriculture.”Taking a potshot at the central government over the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, the chief minister said the outlay in the scheme equates to “mere peanuts” for farmers with nominal income. The scheme entails paying Rs 6,000 per annum to farmers owning up to two hectares of land.”Farmers in Andhra Pradesh’s Rayalaseema region own land up to 6 hectares but have nominal incomes. For such persons, the outlay in the scheme is mere peanuts. We are giving Rs 2,000 per month as pension for such farmers,” Naidu said.The Telugu Desam Party chief also claimed that Prime Minister Modi had earlier suggested him to not waive farmer loans.“But we have waived loans for farmers. We are spending almost Rs 20,000 crores for farmers. Andhra Pradesh is the only state spending such high amounts for farmers,” he said.“Six out of the top 10 districts using micro-irrigation are from Andhra. We are the top state efficiently implementing micro-irrigation. We gave loans of almost Rs 9.5 crores for 26 lakh farmers. 40 lakh quintals of seeds are distributed in the state. We are setting up a mega seed park at Tangadancha village in Kurnool district in association with Iowa University,” Naidu said.
He further slammed the Centre for not allotting requisite funds when the Titli and Pethai cyclones hit the state.“The central government did not allot any funds. Our agriculture minister went to Delhi. Even then the central government has shown discrimination. For the same reason, people in Palasa of Srikakulam district rejected Amit Shah’s tour. ,” Naidu said. (ANI)
