Govt apathy hurting agri, oppn alleges; min hits back

Thiruvananthapuram: The state assembly on Monday witnessed heated arguments between the ruling and the opposition members on the ‘crisis in the farming sector in the state’ before the latter staged a walkout, alleging that the LDF government was making hollow promises instead of helping farmers ‘who were on the verge of committing suicide’.
Though speaker P Sreeramakrishnan, after nod from agriculture minister V S Sunilkumar, allowed discussion on an adjournment motion moved by Congress MLA Sunny Joseph. The rare gesture of treasury benches accepting notice for adjournment motion couldn’t prevent the usual walkout by the opposition.
The intention of the treasury bench was clear from the beginning of the discussion — to corner Congress for the Asean agreement India signed in August 2009, during the Manmohan Singh-led UPA government, which according to them triggered the crisis in the agriculture sector.
“After cheating the rubber farmers to help tyre companies, the UDF and the Congress is now shedding crocodile tears for them,” said Sunilkumar, concluding the discussions, and his remarks triggered a commotion which went on for a few minutes. The minister also urged the UDF to join the LDF in opposing and defeating the move to import dairy and other agricultural produces from the US, a matter under consideration in the ongoing Indo-US discussions.
“The Kerala government is doing nothing for the farmers who are in deep financial crisis and the number of farmer suicides under the LDF tenure now stands at 22,” said opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala, while leading the walkout after the speaker rejected the resolution. But the minister retorted that the number of farmers who committed suicide during the previous government’s tenure was 69.
UDF members including K C Joseph, P J Joseph, Anoop Jacob and Shafi Parambil alleged that farmers were not the priority of the state government, ‘which was evident in the hollow promises and low plan fund expenditure’. CPM MLA Raju Abraham hit back, demanding the UDF to apologize to farmers for all the global agreements signed and wrong polices, ‘which now the BJP-led government is following in a more aggressive manner’.
Taking part in the discussions, former minister Mullakkara Ratnakaran stressed the need for a central debt relief act, ‘a long-pending demand’, while Congress MLA Shafi Parambil demanded waving off all agricultural loans to prevent farmer suicides.
Dismissing allegations that the government remained insensitive to farmers’ issues, as P J Joseph tried to convey through an old Malayalam film song ‘Kannu thurakkatha daivangale...’, the minister said that the farming sector was witnessing a speedy revival under the LDF government.