BRS to abstain from Vice Presidential poll in protest over urea crisis

The Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) has decided to abstain in the upcoming vice-presidential elections as an expression of anguish for the suffering Telangana farmers who are reeling under urea shortage.

Blaming both the Congress and the BJP for the shortage of urea, BRS working president K T Rama Rao said they would have opted for NOTA if there was such a provision in the vice-presidential elections. Meanwhile, the Congress has blamed the BJP for the “conspiracy” over the shortage of urea.

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Rao, popularly known as KTR, said both the BJP and Congress have failed to resolve the urea shortage. He said there were scuffles among farmers as they queued up for long hours for urea. “We are abstaining. We are not going to participate.”

He added, “We are neither subordinate to the NDA nor to the INDI Alliance. We only fight for Telangana interests”. The BRS has four MPs in the Rajya Sabha.

Meanwhile, state transport minister and Congress leader Ponnam Prabhakar blamed the BJP for conspiring to create urea shortage in Telangana.

Criticizing BJP state president N Ramachander Rao for his silence over the urea shortage, the minister said, “BJP president N Ramchander Rao doesn’t care about farmers. Has he spoken about the urea shortage? In fact, the urea shortage in Telangana was the result of a BJP conspiracy.”

He further denied the role of the Congress government, saying, “Will we create a shortage and trouble ourselves? Will we create the urea shortage in Telangana ourselves to tarnish our government’s reputation?”

Although Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy’s appeal to regional parties to vote for the INDI Bloc VP candidate B Sudarshan Reddy has largely been ignored, except for AIMIM, the YSRCP, which has decided to support the NDA candidate, has given a call for statewide agitation, “Annadata Poru” on 9 September across Andhra Pradesh, on the urea shortage plaguing farmers.

The party blamed TDP, alleging artificial shortage and black marketing of urea. YSRCP ‘s parliamentary party leader YV Subba Reddy met NDA’s VP candidate CP Radhakrishnan.