Farmers refuse to let their lands used for TRS's mega rally at Warangal

A day after its humbling defeat in Huzurabad bypoll, the ruling TRS is facing opposition from the farmers unwilling to provide their crop lands for the party’s “Telangana Vijaya Garjana Sabha” on November 29.

The mega public rally near Warangal is to mark the party’s two decades of existence and to showcase the TRS government’s accomplishments in the last seven years.

Party leadership wants it to be on a massive scale, to be attended by 10 lakh people. 20,000 buses are being arranged to ferry the multitudes to the gathering needing about 600 acres of land.

On Wednesday, TRS leaders who went to survey the Sabha spot at Devannapeta village faced the farmers’ ire.

Even if the party compensates them for the standing crop, ryots reportedly say that restoring the ground for farming again would be costly and troublesome too as the demarcations between owners – mostly small and marginal farmers - would be blurred.

The local BJP leaders came in the support of farmers.

TRS supremo and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had earlier planned the meeting on November 15. But on Monday, a day before the Huzurabad results were to be announced, Rao decided to change the date to November 29.

The alteration was to let the meeting take place on November 29, to coincide with the date in 2009 when Rao sat on a hunger strike demanding statehood. TRS leaders refer to the day as “Telangana Deeksha Diwas.”

According to CMO officials, KCR took the decision upon the request of several leaders from the Warangal region.

“They appealed to the CM that it would be appropriate to conduct ‘Telangana Vijaya Garjana Sabha’ in commemoration of the Deeksha Diwas started by him to even sacrifice his life for achieving separate Telangana state. The CM obliged.”

Following widespread protests in the region, the then UPA-1 government was forced to move towards creation of the new state. It, however, took about five years from then for the formation of Telangana, separated from united Andhra Pradesh.

The TRS which won the 2014 polls and formed the first government was able to retain power in the 2018 assembly elections.

The Huzurabad defeat at the hands of former lieutenant Eatala Rajender, now with the BJP, is seen as a major setback for Rao, after the Dubbaka by-poll last year.

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