Is it going to be crowded contest in Varanasi?

Hyderabad: After the turmeric farmers from Telangana, the people from the fluoride-affected areas of the two Telugu states have also decided to use Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh as a platform to highlight their sufferings at the national level.

Even as 40 turmeric farmers from Nizamabad district in Telangana were travelling to Varanasi to file their nomination papers for the Lok Sabha elections, a group of people from fluoride-affected areas of Nalgonda district in Telangana and Prakasham district of Andhra Pradesh have also decided to enter the fray as a mark of protest against the failure of the Central government to help them.

N Sudheer, Chairman, NRI Foundation said that five affected people from Nalgonda and six from Praksham district will file their nomination papers from Varanasi on April 29.

The constituency was in focus as the Prime Minister Narendra Modi was seeking a second term from there.

Excess fluoride in groundwater is an age-old problems of the two districts and it has left hundreds of people crippled or with deformed bones.

The residents of the area were demanding pensions, rehabilitation and a permanent solution to their drinking water problems.

While the central government had announced in 2008 it would set up a fluorosis research and mitigation centre, the proposal only remained on paper for more than a decade.

The affected people who formed themselves into Fluorosis Vimochna Samiti (Struggle Committee against Fluorosis) have been raising their issues at various forums under the leadership of their president K Subhash and NRI Foundation chairman N Sudheer. They submitted several representations to the Centre with various proposals, but nothing came out of it.

Though the local senior Congress leader K Venkat Reddy had gone on a fast unto death in Nalgonda drawing huge support from the masses in early 2000, nothing happened though he later became a minister in YS Rajasekhar Reddy government.

The fluoride affected people decided to contest elections when a group of 40 turmeric farmers from Nizamabad were travelling to Varanasi with the purpose of entering the electoral fray and raise their demand for setting up Turmeric Board and remunerative price for their product.

Earlier 179 turmeric farmers had also contested en mass from Nizamabad Lok Sabha constituency. D Aravind, who was BJP’s candidate from Nizambad has alleged that those going to Varanasi were affiliated to the Telangana Rashtra Samiti and they were not ordinary farmers.

Varanasi where Modi filed his nomination papers on Friday will go to polls on May 19 in the last phase of the Lok Sabha elections.