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Mumbai, Oct 28 (IANS) Shiv Sena (UBT) on Tuesday accused the BJP and its central leadership of playing election politics and acquiring land for party offices and inaugurating them, alleging that they do not have time to provide necessary financial assistance to rain and flood-hit farmers from different parts of Maharashtra.
The Thackeray camp on Tuesday hit out at the BJP over the bhoomi pujan of a multi-storey office of its Maharashtra unit in south Mumbai, the foundation stone of which was laid by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday.
“Is the government, which is putting all its efforts in increasing the party’s wealth, aware of the crisis faced by farmers due to the still continuing rains in the state, which is causing further damage to crops and increasing the financial distress of farmers?” The Thackeray camp was asked in Saamna’s editorial.
“The extremely heavy rains in the last four months have already destroyed the entire Kharif crop in 70 lakh acres and the continuing rains have ruined the crop in some more lakh hectares.
In the editorial, the Thackeray camp said, “From Konkan to Marathwada and from western and northern Maharashtra to Vidarbha, Maharashtra’s farmers want to bid ‘goodbye’ to the rains, but it seems that it will continue and completely destroy the crops. While farmers are struggling to deal with the situation, the BJP-led government is busy increasing the party’s wealth.”
“Delhi’s rulers are busy with electoral politics. They have time to quickly acquire land for party offices and inaugurate them. However, they do not have time to pay attention to the concerns of farmers and provide them immediate assistance.”
“This is perhaps the first time that it has rained for six consecutive months from May to October. Due to the low pressure area formed in the Bay of Bengal and the cyclone formed due to it, the state is experiencing unseasonal rains till October 30. The weather department has announced that there will be more rains. Therefore, farmers will have to watch their crops get destroyed in despair for the next three-four days,” the editorial said.
The Thackeray camp criticized the state government for its plea that the term “wet drought” does not exist in the rule books and hence it cannot consider more assistance to farmers affected by the natural disaster.
“However, the government should set aside the “wet drought” and provide immediate assistance to farmers when Maharashtra has experienced such severe rainfall this year,” it said.
Stepping up its attack against the state government citing apathy towards farmers, the editorial said the government has neither declared a “wet drought” nor sent a central team to inspect crop damage in Maharashtra. It was reported that the meager assistance announced by the Maharashtra government did not reach the farmers before Diwali.
According to the editorial, lakhs of acres of crops across the state have been completely destroyed due to incessant rains and there has been some relief after this devastating rain that lasted till September. The harvesting of the few crops that had escaped the heavy rains was in full swing when the rains came again.
Paddy crop was about to be harvested in some places, but the return of rains ruined all the hard work of farmers in Gadchiroli and surrounding areas of Vidarbha and entire paddy fields in Konkan.
In Marathwada too, the soybean crop that had been stored has become drenched due to the return of rain. Maize and cotton crops were also badly affected. In Nashik district too, withdrawal of rains caused huge damage to onions, summer onion seedlings, vegetables and vineyards which were about to be harvested. Due to continuous rain and cloudy weather, the expenditure on spraying of grape growers has doubled this year.
–IANS
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