Chandrababu Naidu ends fast

Hyderabad : Telugu Desam Party president Chandrababu Naidu finally broke his indefinite fast in protest of the government’s alleged indifference to the farmers in the state after eight days on Friday.

Efforts were made from various quarters to persuade the state Opposition leader to break his indefinite hunger strike even as the medics sounded alarms on his deteriorating health.

Naidu was forcibly moved into an intensive care unit of a Hyderabad hospital after doctors said his condition had worsened on Thursday.

Naidu has been on fast at the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences since Monday. He did not even heed to the requests of his wife and son, who have been at hospital, to end the fasting.

His demands are that farmers be given greater compensation than what the government has sanctioned after rains destroyed 50 lakh acres of crops.

Some 30 farmers have allegedly committed suicide this year, but independent sources claimed the toll was much higher that the official account.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy was earlier quoted as saying that the government had no fund to concede that kind of a compensation.