New Delhi: “The Maharashtra chief minister had announced a loan waiver of Rs34,000 crore for 89 lakh farmers. Unfortuntely, it has been found that a meager Rs16,000 crore was released, and not more than 50 lakh farmers benefitted,” said senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal.
He was addressing the media about the prevailing agrarian crisis in the poll-bound Maharashtra at party headquarters in New Delhi on Saturday.
He targetted the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance government in Maharashtra for doing nothing over the last five years. “They did nothing for the poor,” said Sibal, presenting the poverty data for Maharashtra, which states that 17.35% population in the state is still living below the poverty-line.
“Though unemployment remains a major issue among the youths, the BJP-Sena led Maharashtra government’s inability to tackle the issue is clear from the data, which indicates that the unemployment rate in the state is 4.9%,” informed Sibal.
Talking on agrarian crisis and a major poll concern of farmers’ suicide in Maharashtra, Sibal said, “During the Congress-NCP rule between 1999 and 2014, 8,000 farmers had committed suicide, whereas over the last four years, more than 12,500 farmers have ended their lives. State’s debt burden has crossed Rs5 lakh crore as against Rs2.5 lakh crore. Whereas infant mortality rate is 19 per 1,000 births, life expectancy is 72.2 years on average. Ditto with the gross enrollment at senior secondary school level, which is 67.8%. All this has pushed Maharashtra to 15th rank in Human Development Index (HDI),” said Sibal.
Maharashtra goes to poll on October 21, and the BJP-Shiv Sena coalition is trying hard to retain the power, while the Congress-NCP alliance is desperate to make a comeback. In 2009, the Congress had won 82 (28%) and and its ally NCP had won 62 (22%) seats to form the government in the 288-member Assembly.
Hit by irrigation scams worth nearly Rs70,000 crore, the Congress-NCP lost the election in 2014. They blame their defeat on their failure to provide water to the state’s drought-hit districts. The BJP had won 122 (42%) seats and its ally Shiv Sena had won 63 seats (22%). The Congress had manage 42 (15%) and NCP won 41 (14%) seats only.
