Carrying posters that criticise the Tamil Nadu government’s decision to give cars with drivers to all 234 MLAs, farmers submit petition to Tenkasi Collector Ranjeet Singh on Friday.
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
The TVK government’s decision to buy cars for 234 MLAs of Tamil Nadu came in for sharp criticism during the farmers’ grievance redress meeting held here on Friday.As the meeting commenced with District Collector Ranjeet Singh in chair, a section of the farmers were seen carrying posters that squarely criticised the Tamil Nadu Government’s decision to provide cars with drivers to all 234 MLAs.“Instead of waiving crop loans, the Tamil Nadu Government is providing cars to 234 MLAs which will cost ₹219.96 crore. Waive the crop loans first and dump the plan to gift cars to MLAs,” said the posters in the hands of the farmers as they submitted a petition to Mr. Ranjeet Singh demanding crop loan waiver.They said the farmers are facing nature’s fury like drought and downpour and man-made disasters like fertilizer and pesticide price rise making agriculture a gamble. However, the Tamil Nadu Government was not concerned about the farmers’ welfare and no step had been taken to waive crop loans to all farmers.At the same time, the State Government was keen on gifting cars with drivers to all 234 MLAs and an assistant, which would cost more than ₹219 crore.“The TVK government should fulfil its poll promise of crop loan waiver instead wasting its precious resources for buying cars for MLAs,” they said.The farmers raised a range of issues including crop loss caused by wild animals, diversion of wild streams flowing from the Western Ghats to the irrigation tanks for creating artificial waterfalls in the private resorts etc.“The Collector should take concrete steps to address these problems,” they said. Published - August 21, 2026 07:25 pm IST
