Sweet something for Mulayam
The EC’s dubbing of the announcement of this package which included export subsidy to sugar mills and a two million tonne buffer of sugar as a violation of poll norms comes just a week before the third phase of polling in the state, which has the ...
By Aarthi Ramachandran, TNN |
MORADABAD: “Doobte ko tinke ka sahara,” is a phrase that Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh, whose new industrial policy, under the baton of close associate Amar Singh, catapulted the sugar sector in UP to big time action, is probably familiarising himself with in Moradabad.
And the tinka (straw) in question is a sheaf of uncrushed sugarcane, with the Election Commission’s sharp criticism on Friday of farm minister and sugary “friend” of sorts Sharad Pawar over the premature announcement of the sugar package.
The EC’s dubbing of the announcement of this package which included export subsidy to sugar mills and a two million tonne buffer of sugar as a violation of poll norms comes just a week before the third phase of polling in the state, which has the largest area under sugarcane in the country.
The SP has two seats out of nine here, but is still facing uncertainty over its prospects, thanks primarily to the sugarcane farmer’s woes. And the EC’s pronouncement on Friday could be only a chimera of an American Cavalry for the SP. But it is a chimera that Mr Yadav needs badly now.
The question of who will lead in Moradabad is still wide open, at this late hour. And the discontent of the farmer could be the Achilles’ Heel for the SP in this sugarcane-driven district despite the EC’s timely pronouncements.
But the SP chief now has an opportunity to point to the Centre’s goof-up with the EC as the spanner in the good sugar works that he has been doing in UP, at least for the last week of campaigning before the April 18 polling.
Had the sugar package been approved on time, it would have helped Mr Yadav’s friends in the industry and the sugar cane farmers in UP whose cane payments are now suffering as consequence of mills ostensibly colluding to not pick up cane from farmers. But that would have been a credit that the SP could not have claimed for itself with any convincing credibility.
In the face of prevailing uncertainty over the sugar package, Mr Yadav his poll pitch prominently included sugarcane farmers’ claims of an assured good payment in the state when other sugar states are in doldrums on this count, thanks to a glut in cane production this sugar year has been resorting heavy duty poll rhetoric here claiming that every sheaf of cane standing would be crushed by sugar mills.
Shorn of that rhetoric, however, the bitter truth today stares the cane farmers—several of whom are desperately lugging hundreds of tonnes of cane to mills themselves for selling at abysmally lower-than -official-rates in the face.
And the tinka (straw) in question is a sheaf of uncrushed sugarcane, with the Election Commission’s sharp criticism on Friday of farm minister and sugary “friend” of sorts Sharad Pawar over the premature announcement of the sugar package.
The EC’s dubbing of the announcement of this package which included export subsidy to sugar mills and a two million tonne buffer of sugar as a violation of poll norms comes just a week before the third phase of polling in the state, which has the largest area under sugarcane in the country.
The SP has two seats out of nine here, but is still facing uncertainty over its prospects, thanks primarily to the sugarcane farmer’s woes. And the EC’s pronouncement on Friday could be only a chimera of an American Cavalry for the SP. But it is a chimera that Mr Yadav needs badly now.
The question of who will lead in Moradabad is still wide open, at this late hour. And the discontent of the farmer could be the Achilles’ Heel for the SP in this sugarcane-driven district despite the EC’s timely pronouncements.
But the SP chief now has an opportunity to point to the Centre’s goof-up with the EC as the spanner in the good sugar works that he has been doing in UP, at least for the last week of campaigning before the April 18 polling.
ADVERTISEMENT
Had the sugar package been approved on time, it would have helped Mr Yadav’s friends in the industry and the sugar cane farmers in UP whose cane payments are now suffering as consequence of mills ostensibly colluding to not pick up cane from farmers. But that would have been a credit that the SP could not have claimed for itself with any convincing credibility.
In the face of prevailing uncertainty over the sugar package, Mr Yadav his poll pitch prominently included sugarcane farmers’ claims of an assured good payment in the state when other sugar states are in doldrums on this count, thanks to a glut in cane production this sugar year has been resorting heavy duty poll rhetoric here claiming that every sheaf of cane standing would be crushed by sugar mills.
Shorn of that rhetoric, however, the bitter truth today stares the cane farmers—several of whom are desperately lugging hundreds of tonnes of cane to mills themselves for selling at abysmally lower-than -official-rates in the face.
Campaigning in Moradabad on Wednesday, Mr Yadav tasted some of this bitterness and re-asserted that all sugar mills would keep running until the last stalk of cane was harvested.
That assertion is unlikely to earn him bouquets from his sugar industry, who appear to have quietly colluded with the Ganna Vikas Parishad, the agency meant to liaison between farmers and sugar mills for sugarcane procurement, to not pick up cane from farmers.
Although this is a violation of the state’s contract with them. Mr Yadav’s woes from sugar industrialist friends could prove only a small political price to pay and only a temporary setback if the farmer votebank could be assuredly won over to his side.
But across constituencies such as Sambhal, Chandausi Baijoi and others farmers are firmly convinced, a week before the elections, that Yadav is going to be “cleaned out” from UP this time round.
At Majhawali, where the Binas Sugar Mill is located, sugar-cane laden trucks and tractors line up the highway and crowd the mill gate in large numbers. The trucks are accompanied by farmers, who if the system in place worked, should not have been accompanying their harvest to the mill gate.
ADVERTISEMENT
“We have not got the government order slip and so have been forced to sell to the Mill directly at Rs 80 a quintal though the official rate is Rs 125,” Yogendra Singh from a Bahjoi village says. With cane procurement slips from the Ganna Vikas Parishad yet to reach them this year, farmers are seething. “SP government will not come to power this time... All officials have tended to their own pockets at the cost of the farmers,” says Mehndi Khan a farmer from Imradpur Udhaon in Kunderkhi constituency. He says in his village only the influential farmers have managed to get order slips from the Gunna Parishad and in many fields the crop is still standing.
In Sambhal, considered an SP fortress, between 50-60% of the cane has still not been harvested at a time the wheat crop is ready. At Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav’s rally here a few days back, the crowds were dismal with just a handful of farmers showing up. “Cane is an election issue,” says Mr Khan on the Sambhal-Moradabad route as he takes his harvest to the Arwanpur Mill in Moradabad West.
The feeling that no party is better when it comes to tending to the farmers’ interests is good conversation starter in any of these areas. “The BSP was no better. Mayawati was the one who closed down all the smaller sugar mills,” says Mr Yogendra Singh in Mahjawali.
ADVERTISEMENT
That could be little consolation for the SP, though, even in Sambhal where there has been as much as Rs 200 crore pumped into development by SP MP Ram Gopal Yadav—Mulayam Singh’s cousin—the cane slip-up could prove costly for the party.Download
The Economic Times Business News App for the Latest News in Business, Sensex, Stock Market Updates & More.
The Economic Times Business News App for the Latest News in Business, Sensex, Stock Market Updates & More.
Download
The Economic Times News App for Quarterly Results, Latest News in ITR, Business, Share Market, Live Sensex News & More.
The Economic Times News App for Quarterly Results, Latest News in ITR, Business, Share Market, Live Sensex News & More.
ADVERTISEMENT
