50 turmeric farmers from Telangana arrive in Varanasi to file nominations, contest against PM Modi

A group of 50 turmeric farmers from Telangana's Nizamabad arrived in Varanasi on Saturday to file their nomination as independent candidates to contest against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.

"We are not opposing anyone. We just want to highlight our problems and demand creation of a turmeric board and Minimum Support Price of Rs 15000 per quintal (MSP) for turmeric," a spokesperson for the farmers said while speaking to ANI.

Alleging that their problems were not addressed under both the ruling BJP government and UPA government, a farmer said: "This was not solved during UPA's tenure too, Prime Minister Narendra Modi did the same. We are not against him or campaigning against anyone."

Turmeric farmers across the country are facing hardships due to famine conditions and lack of MSP for the last three to four years. This year, turmeric prices have fallen to Rs 3,200 per quintal from Rs 5,200 per quintal.

On April 26, Prime Minister Modi had filed his nomination for Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency. PM Modi is contesting against Congress' Ajay Rai and SP leader Shalini Yadav. This would be the second time Prime Minister Modi and Rai will battle from Varanasi seat.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Prime Minister Modi won from Varanasi by a margin of 3.37 lakh votes. AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal and Rai were among the candidates from the seat. While Kejriwal came in the second place, Rai stood third in the vote tally.

Varanasi will go to polls on May 19 in the last phase of the Lok Sabha elections. The counting of votes will take place on May 23.