Vidarbha farmers are lazy, says Vaghela
In A statement that could put the UPA government on top of the “insensitivity index”, Union textile minister Shankarsinh Vaghela on Sunday said farmers of Vidarbha were themselves to be blamed for their plight.
By TNN |
NEW DELHI: In A statement that could put the UPA government on top of the “insensitivity index”, Union textile minister Shankarsinh Vaghela on Sunday said farmers of Vidarbha were themselves to be blamed for their plight.
Addressing a two-day conference of the Maharashtra Cotton Conference at Punjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth in Maharashtra’s Akola, Mr Vaghela said farmers of the region, unlike their counterparts in his home state of Gujarat, were “lazy”. “If you just sit and chew tobacco in the farms, how can you expect good crops? The government can only help you to an extent. You should emulate the practices of farmers in Gujarat,” reports from Akola quoting the minister said. Mr Vaghela and chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, who spoke at the conference, advised farmers to ‘face challenges instead of committing suicide’.
The Congress’ rivals are certain to use Mr Vaghela’s statements to ram in their political point that the Congress-led governments in the state and the Centre are not sufficiently sensitive to the concerns of the farmers of Vidarbha.
At the meeting, the chief minister also rejected a demand for waiving loans to farmers in Vidarbha, where hundreds of debt-ridden ryots have committed suicide over the past few years. He said writing off loans was not a remedy to prevent suicides by farmers, which he described as a disgrace to the state government.
The chief minister’s statement is seen as a rebuff to senior leaders of his party, who have joined the loan waiver demand. Mr Deshmukh appears to have concluded, and rightly so, that it will not solve the problem. As a matter of fact, farmers continue to commit suicide even after the announcement of a whopping Rs 3,700 crore package by the prime minister.
The chief minister, who stuck to his ‘no loan waiver’ stand, said waiving interest on loans this year has benefited around 10 lakh farmers in six districts of Vidarbha.
Addressing a two-day conference of the Maharashtra Cotton Conference at Punjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth in Maharashtra’s Akola, Mr Vaghela said farmers of the region, unlike their counterparts in his home state of Gujarat, were “lazy”. “If you just sit and chew tobacco in the farms, how can you expect good crops? The government can only help you to an extent. You should emulate the practices of farmers in Gujarat,” reports from Akola quoting the minister said. Mr Vaghela and chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, who spoke at the conference, advised farmers to ‘face challenges instead of committing suicide’.
The Congress’ rivals are certain to use Mr Vaghela’s statements to ram in their political point that the Congress-led governments in the state and the Centre are not sufficiently sensitive to the concerns of the farmers of Vidarbha.
At the meeting, the chief minister also rejected a demand for waiving loans to farmers in Vidarbha, where hundreds of debt-ridden ryots have committed suicide over the past few years. He said writing off loans was not a remedy to prevent suicides by farmers, which he described as a disgrace to the state government.
The chief minister’s statement is seen as a rebuff to senior leaders of his party, who have joined the loan waiver demand. Mr Deshmukh appears to have concluded, and rightly so, that it will not solve the problem. As a matter of fact, farmers continue to commit suicide even after the announcement of a whopping Rs 3,700 crore package by the prime minister.
The chief minister, who stuck to his ‘no loan waiver’ stand, said waiving interest on loans this year has benefited around 10 lakh farmers in six districts of Vidarbha.
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