Palla slams Bandi\'s claim of 10,000 farmer suicides in TS

Hyderabad: Rythu Bandhu Samithi chairman and BRS MLC Palla Rajeshwar Reddy on Monday strongly refuted comments made by BJP state president Bandi Sanjay Kumar that almost 10,000 farmers had committed suicide in the last eight years while the TRS was in power as a result of debt, a lack of MSP, and procurement issues. Speaking to media along with MLA Guvvala Balaraju, MLCs M.S.Prabhakar and V.Gangadhar Goud at the BRS Legislature Party office here, Palla said that since 2014, the farmers' suicides in Telangana came down by 400 per cent as per the Centre's NCRD records. With the implementation of pro-farmer policies by the BRS government, such as Rythu Bandhu, Rythu Bima, 25x7 free power to agriculture, among others, Telangana recorded zero farmer suicides due to debts or agri-related problems, and all farmer suicides being reported by the NCRB were on account of personal, family, health factors, he claimed. Palla also strongly refuted Bandi's contention that only rich farmers were receiving Rythu Bandhu benefits, citing statistics to support his claim that 91% of those receiving benefits were small and marginal farmers with an average landholding size of less than 10 acres.