“Turmeric Board. This is what the board our honourable MP has brought”, read yellow colour boards which have come up in Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency in a unique protest by turmeric farmers over the failed promise of BJP MP Arvind Dharmapuri to set up a Turmeric Noard there.
Two days after the Centre categorically told the Parliament that there is no proposal to establish a Turmeric Board or any other spice-specific Board in the country, hoardings and posters mocking the Nizamabad MP and BJP for their failed promise have come up in the constituency.
The farmers are reminding the BJP MP of his promise that he will get the Turmeric Board within 5 days of winning the election. He had failed to get the board in 4.5 years.
Dharmapuri had even assured farmers that he would resign from his position in Parliament and join the farmer’s and people’s campaign if he couldn’t keep his word.
The BJP leader, who had defeated BRS leader and Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao’s daughter K. Kavitha in 2019 polls, had made the promise in writing and even signed it with a non-judicial (bond) stamp. His associates printed copies of the pledge and distributed them throughout the turmeric-growing regions of the Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency.
Senior BJP leaders who supported the pledge included Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Anupriya Patel had told Parliament on Wednesday that there is no proposal to establish a Turmeric Board or any other spice-specific Board in the country.
She was replying to a question raised by BRS MPs Venkatesh Netha Borlakunta, Kavitha Malothu, Dayakar Pasunoori, and Gaddam Ranjith Reddy in Lok Sabha on the constraints that the Centre was facing to set up the Turmeric Board in Nizamabad.
K. Kavitha, former MP and now BRS MLC, had questioned Dharmapuri about his promises to bring the Turmeric Board to the district in the year 2022. Kavitha made the observation that he had been unsuccessful in convincing the Union government to set up a turmeric board in the district.
In light of disclosures produced using an RTI, Kavitha asked the BJP Nizamabad MP the justification for denying the farmers and people of Nizamabad their basic dues. She also said that the MP was making exaggerated claims about the allocation of Rs 100 crore when, under his administration, every farmer only received Rs 200 from the Turmeric Board.
Kavitha recalled Dharmapuri and the BJP’s lofty but erroneous promises to the Nizamabad people to just win an election and tamper with their hopes and needs.
