With farmers' suicides continuing unabated in Maharashtra, the Shiv Sena on Thursday asked its ruling coalition ally, the Bharatiya Janata Party, whether it had any schemes in place for the benefit of the community.
The Sena also flayed the opposition Congress-Nationalist Congress Party, demanding full waiver of farm loans, for disrupting the ongoing monsoon session of the state legislature.
In a sharp piece in the party mouthpiece, Saamana on Thursday, the Sena said Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has rejected the demand for writing off farm loans as the state is already overburdened under a huge debt.
"The government is feeling that taking any new debts could make Maharashtra's (financial) condition like Greece... Although the present situation is the handiwork of the previous (Congress-NCP) regime," the piece said.
Shiv Sena urged the government to remember that the hard work of the farmers and workers laid the foundation of the state.
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"It is these very people who have brought you to power... If they have to continue dying like this, then what was wrong with the previous government? The new government must act different," the Sena urged the BJP.
It lamented about how hopes were raised with changes in administration; instead, the 'servants' (rulers) of the people are talking about trampling their 'masters' (public).
The Sena advised the BJP that public welfare should be the main aim of the government and they must work towards it.
"The farmers are in terrible misery since many years... Even now they are under the debt-trap and at the mercy of the weather... It is the government which must free him from these agonies. It is a matter of their life and death," the Sena said, calling for farm loans waiver.
Castigating the Congress-NCP combine, which has been demanding a complete write-off of farm debts, the Sena alleged that "yesterday's thieves ('lootere') are today's guardians/protectors ('sahukar')".
"When they were in power in the state and Centre, they never bothered about the farmers... Now, they suddenly remember the peasants who died and make a sarcastic show of sympathy for them," the piece said.
