Sharad Pawar tells PM Modi that farmers’ stir 'apolitical', asks for loan waiver

MUMBAI: Nationalist Congress Party president Sharad Pawar on Tuesday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to request a loan waiver for farmers in Maharashtra even as chief minister Devendra Fadnavis called a meeting of just BJP ministers.

Shiv Sena and other BJP allies have been supporting the stir. Refuting Fadnavis’s claim that political groups were behind the aggressive protests, Pawar told the PM that it was ‘apolitical’.

The BJP itself has been raising the same issues and state BJP agitated on these issues two years ago. The protest is spontaneous, Pawar told the media later.

He added that the Congress and NCP were supporting the farmers’ demands. The NCP chief said that he had also expressed about the Maharashtra government using police machinery to ‘intimidate’ and ‘crush’ the protests.

He said that the government should ensure that the Swaminathan Committee report on MSP and other reforms suggested should be implemented.