The Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) criticised the BJP-led Maharashtra government for its failure in loan waiver implementation and also for not addressing the issues of cotton farmers.
The two opposition parties accused the ruling party of leading the state towards bankruptcy.
Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, leader of opposition on state assembly and Congress leader said, “The BJP-led government has made several mistakes in loan waiver implementation. The figures have gone wrong and the company appointed for the processing of data has also made several mistakes. The loan waiver announcement was made in June and till today there is no sufficient data to show how many farmers have actually received the benefits of loan waiver.”
The issues of loss of soybean crop and cotton crop facing attack of bollworms have not been addressed by the government, he said.
Senior leader of NCP Ajit Pawar demanded a district and assembly constituency-wise list of farmers whose loans have been waived by the state government.
“Unless such a list is declared, I am not going to believe that this state government has implemented loan waiver,” Pawar said.
Vikhe Patil, referring to national crime and records bureau (NCRB) data said, “Maharashtra is reporting higher number of killings and farmers suicides as well. Cyber crime rate in the state is the second highest in the country. This government arrests leaders like Yashwant Sinha while a notorious criminal of Nagpur-Munna Yadav- is free and safe.”
Vikhe Patil further said that if the Maharashtra police intended to nab Munna Yadav, then the police should check the mobile number of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to trace Yadav.
Dhananjay Munde, leader of opposition in state legislative council, said, “The state government pats its own back for loan waiver but many farmers have committed suicide in Maharashtra from June. Dnyaneshwar Misal, a farmer who committed suicide some days ago, had written letters to ministers about his plight. Nobody responded to his letters and finally he ended his life.”
Munde demanded a compensation of Rs 25,000 per acre to farmers whose cotton crop had been damaged by pink bollworms saying that he had personally written to the CM when the central government’s institutes had issued a warning over such attacks.
“The figures of purchase of produce such as several foodgrains, soyabean and moong are also discouraging. The state government-run procurement centres have purchased 2.16 lakh quintals of soyabean out of 357 lakh quintal produced in the state. Similarly, out of 14 lakh quintal udid produced by farmers, only two lakh quintal is purchased. Of the 13 lakh quintal moong, only 39,000 kg is purchased so far. These figures are not going to help farmers in any way,” Munde said.
Vikhe Patil also pointed out that the state government has decided not to share information with its opposition, which is an act of authoritarian leadership.
“The government has constituted a committee comprising three senior secretaries to provide recommendations for information sought by several MLAs through RTI. This is unethical control of flow of information and the state should not be doing it.
