Farmers can uproot governments, warns CPI(M) chief Sitaram Yechury

MUMBAI: Warning the ruling BJP, Communist Party of India-Marxist General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on Monday said that farmers can "uproot governments at the Centre and in Maharashtra" if they failed to concede their just demands.

Reaching Mumbai to address a rally of farmers' after their six-day Long March, he said the farmers were the "new soldiers of India" and like the jawans who protect the country's borders the peasantry produces food for the people.

"Any party which ignores the cause of farmers will not survive. Last year, for the first time in the country, Maharashtra farmers had gone on 'strike' which resulted in the announcement of a farm loan waiver package. But after 10 months, it remains unimplemented," Yechury said.

Drawing parallels with the historic Dandi Yatra, he said that on (March 12) on this day 88 years ago, Mahatma Gandhi succeeded in shaking the very foundation of the British Empire which culminated in freedom for India.

"Today, if the farmers' demands are not conceded, they will shake up the state and the Centre and remove the government and install a government of their choice which will stand by the farmers' cause," Yechury said.

He pointed out how the huge loans of industrialists and businessmen were being written off and how people like Lalit Modi, Vijay Mallya and Nirava Modi cheated banks and escaped the country with impunity.

"For writing off the entire debt burden of the farmers, the government needs barely Rs 1 lakh crore, which they don't have. But much more has been lost by banks and they are busy writing off loans by the big corporates," Yechury said.