Maha threat: Farmers union warns of cutting supply of veggies, milk unless loans waived off

The Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana on Tuesday gave the Maharashtra government a month’s notice to come to a decision to waive the loans of the state’s farmers, failing which they would cut the supply of milk and vegetables to all the big cities starting July 1.

Addressing a farmer’s rally at Rani Baug open ground in Byculla, Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana leader and Lok Sabha MP Raju Shetti threatened that the agitations from July 1 would be on the lines of the one carried out by martyr Bhagat Singh.

Earlier, Shetti led a foot march from Parel to Byculla after which he called on Maharashtra Governor Vidyasagar Rao to hand over the memorandum of demands. Shetti also handed over to Governor 6.5 lakh forms seeking loan waiver filled up by farmers in the state.

Recalling that after his discussion with the then Gujarath Chief Minister Narendra Modi who was NDA candidate for the post of Prime Minister during 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Shetti said that Modi had accepted all the three demands made by him. The three demands were implementing Swaminathan committee recommendations, giving autonomy to agricultural pricing commission and setting up national drought mitigation commission.

Alleging that both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis have cheated farmers, Shetti said that he also was party to this cheating and that is the reason this foot-march from Pune to Mumbai was taken out with a feeling of repenting about cheating of farmers on his part.

He said that Make in India, textile parks, demonetization were all steps to help big capitalists of the country and if Government decides to take on farmers head on, farmers would show its place to Chief Minister Fadnavis.

Shetti said that farmers would not allow the proposed Mumbai-Nagpur communication super-express way since this project is aimed at helping big industrialists and make farmers poorer by snatching their fertile lands for this project. He said that even though he was not leading agitation against this project, he has supported this agitation.