Rise in farmer suicides fuels political fire

MUMBAI: Political warfare is set to intensify over the sensitive issue of farmers’ suicide in the Maharashtra hinterland in the days to come. A spurt in the suicides after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a Rs 3,750-crore relief package has only added fuel to the already raging fire.

Since July 1 when the Prime Minister announced the relief, 65 farmers have ended their lives, taking the suicide toll since June ‘05 to 673. Within a fortnight since July 1, ET had reported 52 suicides in Vidarbha. Suicides are also being reported from the Khandesh and Marathwada regions though the situation has assumed alarming proportions in Vidarbha.

Ironically, it’s not only the opposition BJP-Shiv Sena taking up the farmers’ cause. The Congress too has started making noises about the disaster in the cotton constituency. On Sunday, state Congress committee chief Prabha Rau admitted the utter failure of the centre’s relief package to stop suicides.

The relief is just not reaching the debt-ridden farmers, Ms Rau conceded lending credence to the opposition charge. Ms Rau indirectly blamed NCP head honcho and Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar for being indifferent to the agrarian crisis.

“Congress president Sonia Gandhi has done her bit by asking the Centre to announce relief. But there are other responsible people in the picture who seem indifferent to the problem,” Ms Rau said in Nagpur. Several Congress legislators from Vidarbha and Marathwada are now facing the heat with the suicide graph in their constituencies going up every passing day.

During the just-concluded monsoon session of state legislature, a host of Congress legislators supported the opposition-sponsored motion on suicides. The NCP, however, is maintaining a low profile for two reasons, sources said. “First and foremost, we cannot take an agitationist stance since Mr Pawar happens to the agriculture minister.

Second, the drive against money-lenders has not helped either,” an NCP minister in the DF government told ET. He said home minister RR Patil’s self-styled drive against usury has complicated the matters. “Vidarbha does not have a well-established infrastructure of co-operatives and lending institutions.

That apart, a majority farmers have defaulted on previous debt and thus ineligible for fresh loans from banks. In this situation, a village money-lender becomes the only hope for farmers,” the minister said. The BJP-Sena has already embarked upon a state-wide agitation on this issue.

State BJP president Nitin Gadkari told ET: “Both the state and the Union governments are just not serious about this issue. The relief packages announced by the two governments do not address the root causes which are farmers’ indebtedness and ineligibility to draw fresh loans.”

Mr Gadkari said the opposition would step up the stir if the Government did not announce a debt waiver and easy loans at 5% rate of interest. On July 23-24, senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray addressed public meetings in Aurangabad and Nashik.