BJP president Rajnath Singh attacked the Congress-led DF government during his two-day Kisan Yatra, held across four districts in the debt-ridden Vidarbha belt in Maharashtra.
Addressing rallies in Vidarbha, the BJP president said that the government has done little for the debt-ridden farmers
MUMBAI: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh attacked the Congress-led Democratic Front (DF) government during his two-day Kisan Yatra, held across four districts in the debt-ridden Vidarbha belt in Maharashtra. Taking a dig at the the DF government over the continuing farmer suicides in the state, Singh asked how would the Congress president Sonia Gandhi describe her own party in the state, especially after having called the Narendra Modi-led government “Maut Ka Saudagar” (Merchants of Death).
He said that despite Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to the region a year ago, there has been a three-fold increase in the number of farmers committing suicides. He reiterated the fact that one farmer was committing suicide every eight hours in Maharashtra.
Addressing a rally at Yavatmal on Friday, he demanded that the government direct not just cooperative banks but also nationalised banks to provide loans to farmers at a four per cent interest rate. Other benefits should include: a one-year moratorium on recovery of interest on agricultural loans; a hike in the minimum support price for agricultural produce; insurance cover to production inputs and agricultural produce, and a pension scheme for farmers over 55 years.
At Chandur, too, Singh raised a similar war cry saying, “Once our BJP-Shiv Sena government comes to power farmers will not have to commit suicides.”
The rally had its share of drama with the local police seizing controversial posters put up by BJP workers. State BJP spokesman, Madhav Bhandari said that one of the posters depicted Sharad Pawar dressed as a cricketer lighting the funeral pyre of a farmer with a cricket bat. Another had caricatures of Vilasrao Deshmukh and RR Patil dressed as hangmen with a farmer before them.
The Shiv Sena however, isn’t too comfortable with using the farmer suicide issue for political gain. “Let us see what they are able to achieve out of this yatra,” said Sena member Diwakar Raote, to the DNA. He added: “The Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray has been constantly arguing that the issue of farmers suicides should not be politicised.”
Raote also said that Sena office bearers in the region had adopted the orphaned children of the farmers, and that the Buldhana district cooperative bank, too, has been providing financial aid for the educational expenses of the orphans.
h_prashant@dnaindia.net
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