BJP steps up fight for Uttar Pradesh cane growers

The BJP also questioned the delay in announcing the state advisory price for sugarcane, which hit the cane growers in a big way

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh will Tuesday visit the bereaved family of a sugarcane farmer in Lakhimpur Kheri area of Uttar Pradesh who committed suicide due to heavy debts.

Party spokesman Vijay Bahadur Pathak said Rajnath Singh will go to the Bastauli-Guleriya village to meet the family of cane grower Satya Pal Singh, who had committed suicide Saturday.

Accusing the Akhilesh Yadav government in the state of "failing to meet the aspirations of farmers and mortgaging their interests to private sugar mill owners", Pathak said even after the farmer's suicide, the state government did not spell out clearly how the pending payments and arrears of the cane farmers will be made.

The BJP also questioned the delay in announcing the state advisory price (SAP) for sugarcane, which hit the cane growers in a big way, and sought answers from the Samajwadi Party (SP) government on the fate of the Rs.2,318 crore in dues which the farmers are yet to get since last year.

The BJP leader also said Rs.20 per quintal has been staggered "endlessly" this season.

"This government, like its predecessor government, have turned a blind eye to the problems faced by the cane growers in the state, forcing some to take the extreme step of suicide," said Pathak.

The deceased farmer had a arrear worth Rs.50,000 on a local sugar mill from the last season and was neck deep in fresh debt for the new crop, he wrote in his suicide note.

With delay in announcing of the SAP, which farmers later slammed as inadequate and loss-making, the farmer committed suicide Saturday.

The BJP also announced the 'gherao' of the Cane Commissioner's Office in the state capital Dec 5 by the farmers wing of the party.