The ruling National Democratic Alliance received a setback Wednesday when a constituent offered to join “any front” to fight the “anti-farmer regime” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Modi is leading an anti-farmer regime,” Raju Shetti, the leader of Swabhimani Paksha, which contested the 2014 parliamentary election as an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party, said after meeting Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav in Delhi. “A national agitation is required to oust this government.”
Shetti, a prominent farmers’ leader and MP from Maharashtra, founded the farmers’ organisation Swabhimani Shetkari Sangathan.
His revolt is significant because Swabhimani Paksha, despite being a small constituent of the NDA, enjoys considerable influence among farmers in Maharashtra. “I wrote over a dozen letters to Modi in the last two years, explaining the crisis in farm sector and the plight of farmers and requesting him to take some urgent steps,” Shetti said. “But nothing happened. In their manifesto they promised to double farmers’ income but ended up doubling their debt.
Shetti criticised Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for saying states should not expect any assistance from the Centre for their loan waiver schemes. “The government’s export-import policy has led to this crisis,” he said. “But now Jaitley is saying that states should generate their own resources for waiving off farmers’ loan. What does he mean? Why should states pay for the mess created by the Centre?”
He also trashed the Modi government’s crop insurance and soil health card schemes. “These steps are only meant to divert attention from the government’s refusal to pay minimum support prices as was promised at the time of the Lok Sabha election,” he claimed. “The crop insurance scheme is designed to benefit insurance companies at the cost of farmers and the soil health card has no meaning because farmers were getting soil in their fields tested much before the idea came to Modi.”
Shetti has not yet left the NDA formally but he said it was now a “meaningless” subject. “At the time of the Lok Sabha election, farmers in Maharashtra and other parts of the country thought that Modi would bring achhe din for them and voted in large numbers for us,” he explained. “But in the last three years, around 9,500 farmers have committed suicide in Maharashtra alone. Can I still consider myself a part of the NDA?”
About his meeting with Yadav, he said, “I told him I am ready to work with the opposition parties and join any front that decides to launch a nationwide campaign for the rights of farmers. This government needs to be defeated in the next election.”