Assembly adjourned 4 times over farmers’ issues

NAGPUR: Continuing with their protests on issues of farmers, the opposition parties repeatedly disrupted the Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, leading to its adjournment four times. The first three adjournments were due to protests during the question hour while the last adjournment happened after the government deferred the calling attention motion on massive cotton crop loss due to bollworm attacks.

The Congress-NCP legislators toned down the aggressive stand displayed on Tuesday and allowed other business to be conducted after chief minister Devendra Fadnavis assured to include the issue of bollworm attack in detailed discussion under Rule 293.

Earlier, the Congress-NCP legislators led by opposition leader Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil and former deputy CM Ajit Pawar accused the BJP-Sena government of being "insensitive" towards farmers' plight and demanded a detailed discussions on issues like pesticides, cotton crop damage due to bollworm attacks and government's failure to grant total loan waiver.

Speaker Haribhau Bagde had to adjourn proceedings on four occasions after every time the members entered the well, demanding justice for the farmers and shouted antigovernment slogans.

The opposition MLAs cornered the government after it requested for adjourning discussions on the calling attention motion on bollworm attacks. After the Speaker agreed to government's demands, the opposition created an uproar, with some of its legislators, including Abdul Sattar and Virendra Jagtap, sitting on the floor in protest.

"The government is absolutely not serious even as cotton crop spread over 40 lakh hectares has been completely damaged by bollworm attack, causing a loss of Rs30,000 crore. The ruling party is ignoring cotton growers who are completely devastated," Patil said, while seeking apology from the government.

Pawar targeted the CM stating that he had no control over his ministers, who were finding escape route on the issues related to farmers. "Who are you protecting? Two days have already passed without discussions and still the government is not keen on providing justice to poor farmers, particularly from Vidarbha and Maratha, who are badly waiting for relief. The agriculture minister must come out with an explanation on why the answer has been delayed and act against the negligent officials."

Former Speaker Dilip Walse Patil said both the Prime Minister and CM talked about transparency in governance, but it doesn't reflect in the work of their subordinates. He urged the Speaker to take serious note of such sensitive issues and asked the government to file a reply on Wednesday itself. "The government and its officials are taking the entire issue very lightly and are misleading the house. I doubt the agriculture minister is not being allowed to work freely."

Former CM Prithviraj Chavan and Ganpatrao Patil stressed the government should come up with answers on farmers' issues at the earliest and sought apology from the government for failure to submit the reply to the motion.

The CM requested opposition benches not to make it a prestige issue. He assured them that the government would submit a detailed reply on issues concerning the farmers on Thursday.