With the agitation by red chilli farmers for remunerative price reaching its peak in both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, the Centre has come forward to announced a minimum support price of Rs 5,000 per quintal of mirchi, besides a rebate of Rs 1,600 per quintal.
It also announced that the Centre would purchase 88,000 tonnes of mirchi in Andhra Pradesh and 33,000 tonnes in Telangana under market intervention scheme.
The places of procurement of mirchi would be decided by the respective state governments. This has come as a great relief to mirchi farmers who have been agitating for a remunerative price.
Now, the question is who should get the credit for forcing the Centre to come to the rescue of the farmers?
The Telugu Desam Party leaders are claiming that their leader N Chandrababu Naidu had taken up with the Centre the intensity of the crisis and got the price announced.
The Bharatiya Janata Party leaders say it is because of the initiative of their leaders M Venkaiah Naidu and Bandaru Dattatreya that the Centre has reacted so swiftly.
YSR Congress party leaders are attributing the Centre’s decision to the two-day fast undertaken by their boss Y S Jaganmohan Reddy at Guntur mirchi yard. Had it not been Jagan’s force, the Centre would not have come down at all.
And there is another man who is also in the race to claim credit. He is power star and Jana Sena Party president Pawan Kalyan. May be the Centre has reacted following his statement demanding remunerative prices for the mirchi crop.
And not but not the least, there is also one man who deserves credit but has not claimed it. He is Telangana marketing minister T Harish Rao, who has been writing letters to the Centre regularly, seeking support price from the Centre.
So, who has to be given the credit?
