This story is from July 3, 2019

In maiden speech, Mandya MP Sumalatha Ambareesh slams Karnataka govt

In maiden speech, Mandya MP Sumalatha Ambareesh slams Karnataka govt
Sumalatha Ambareesh
BENGALURU: Mandya MP Sumalatha Ambareesh on Thursday accused the JD(S)-Congress government in Karnataka of failing to properly implement its farm loan waiver scheme and to arrest the growing number of farmer suicides in the state.
Delivering her maiden speech in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, Sumalatha pleaded with the Centre to save the “annadatas” (food providers). In her brief speech, which she initially launched in Kannada before switching to English, the independent thanked the people of Mandya for their ‘swabhimana’ (self pride), a virtue which she had used as her tag line during her election campaign.
“We are staring at a huge water crisis and drought is already prevailing in the region,” she said while raising the issue during zero hour.
“This presents a very bleak scenario for farmers, who largely grow sugarcane and paddy. They are already caught in a vicious cycle of poor pricing for their produce, defunct sugar mills, failure to repay bank loans and inability of the state government to fulfil loan waiver promises.”
Exhorting the central government to take steps to strengthen existing laws to protect interests of farmers, she urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union water resources minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat to treat problems of farmers on an “emergencyscale”.
Invoking Lal Bahadur Shastri’s ‘Jai jawan, jai kisan’ slogan, the Mandya MP said: “Scarcity of fodder for cattle should be addressed by the government on priority.” She feared prevailing conditions would trigger more farmer suicides. She also alleged that the coalition government did not implement any development programmes for the welfare of farmers.
Meanwhile, irked by the accusations, JD(S) leaders slammed Sumalatha and accused her of toeing the opposition BJP line to impress PM Modi.
“It’s unfortunate that Sumalatha made her maiden speech without doing her homework,” former Mandya MP LR Shivarame Gowda and former MLA YSV Datta told a news channel. “She should have collected all the information on the loan waiver scheme before making such allegations. It appears she is looking to impress BJP leaders rather than addressing problems of farmers.”
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