Minister's remark plunges AP House into pandemonium

Hyderabad, Dec 11 (UNI) The Andhra Pradesh Assembly witnessed uproarious scenes when state Marketing Minister B Satyanarayana levelled charges against former chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

The opposition TDP members rushed to the well of the House and staged a noisy protest over what they called a sarcastic remark by the Minister while replying to a question on market intervention operations by the government.

Dissatisfied by the reply of the Minister to a question raised by Congress Member D Sridhar Babu, Mr Naidu demanded that Speaker K R Suresh Reddy must direct Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy to make a statement on the floor of the House on its market intervention strategy.

''The farmers are in deep trouble with no remunerative price for their products like cotton, sugarcane and turmeric,'' Mr Naidu said and urged the government to come out with measures to rescue the distressed peasants.

At this, the Marketing Minister alleged that when Mr Naidu was in power, he had not shown any concern for farmers. ''At least now he is exhibiting some concern,'' he remarked, which was strongly objected to by TDP members.

The Speaker had a tough time restoring order in the House.

Earlier, the Minister said that for the first time in the country, the state Markfed had introduced decentralised mechanism in procurement of maize and other pulses by involving the Self-Help Groups, facilitating additional realisation by farmers to an extent of Rs 100 to Rs 150 crore, besides generating nine lakh man days of employment to the SHGs, who had earned Rs 1.80 crore as service charges.

Supply of farm inputs including fertilisers were being taken up through the grassroots level organisation this year, he said, adding that the government was committed in protecting the interests of farmers by effective market intervention.

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