Blocking out the 'wrong' kind of suicides

HYDERABAD : Double standards or petty politics, name it what you will. Security men accompanying Rahul Gandhi on his Rythu Sandesh Yatra seem to have taken pains to prevent the kin of those farmers who ended their lives under Congress rule from meeting the party scion.
Take the instance of Muthapuram Narsa Reddy at Koritikal village, Rahul's first stopover in Adilabad district.Relatives of the farmer, who committed suicide on October 4, 2012, were kept under house arrest on Friday morning even as the Congress leader 'consoled' the kin of Velama Rajeshwar next door. Rajeshwar had ended his life in distress in May 2015, unlike his neighbour who had consumed pesticide when the Nirmal assembly constituency was being represented by a Congress MLA.
While the family of Rajeshwar was handed over monetary compensation by Rahul, we were ditched by the local Congress leaders, alleged Bhuma Reddy, 28, the late Narsa Reddy's son. "We voted for the Congress along with my father a number of times, but sadly we were not allowed to meet Rahulji to seek financial assistance even when he was near our doorsteps for more than 20 minutes. His security men dashed our hopes of getting ex gratia," he said, clearly disappointed that he was forced to stay inside his house along with his wife Kala, 50-year-old mother M Lasmavva and 90-year-old grandmother Rajavva.
"We had even kept the FIR copy ready after Koritikal sarpanch Banka Bheemalinga promised that he would allow us to meet Rahul Gandhi to seek compensation, but no leaders came to our help," Lasmavva said. Her husband had left the family with a debt of Rs 3 lakh.
The lack of attention from Congressmen seen jostling and swarming around the Congress scion came in for criticism from 40 other people, relatives of three farmers who had committed suicide in Laxmanchanda village, 6 km from Koritikal. While Rahul 'consoled' the families of two deceased farmers - Bandla Linganna and Soodi Lasmanna, both of who had ended their life in October 2014 - the others were seen waving photographs of their deceased loved ones hoping to attract Rahul's attention. But ironically, their voices were drowned out by slogans shouting 'Rahul Gandhi Zindabad'.
"This is cheap politics. No leader even bothered to ask why we were standing there holding photographs," complained S Yella Reddy, a social sciences teacher and brother-in-law of B Kanna Reddy, 50, a farmer who had committed suicide in 2007 leaving his family of three with a debt of Rs 12 lakh. Yella Reddy now shelters his widowed sister Satya Gangavva whose two sons have migrated for work.
"My brother-in-law died at a wrong time (read Congress regime) or else Rahul Gandhi would have visited my sister to grant her compensation. I will definitely ask our sarpanch K Narayana why the leader did not meet us," Yella Reddy said, adding that the sarpanch belongs to the Congress party. Incidentally, Yella Reddy's home is only 500 metres away from the houses of the two families that Rahul visited.
For the record, during the Congress regime from 2004 to 2014, a total of 19 farmer suicides were officially recorded by the State Crime Records Bureau in four villages of Koritikal, Laxmanchanda, Rachapur and Vadal. "But the then Congress government compensated only six farmers," alleged S Borranna, a researcher with NGO Rythu Swaraja Vedika.