BHUBANESWAR: Politics over the agrarian crisis is hotting up with the State BJP announcing on Monday to launch a month-long agitation, beginning December 1, demanding adequate compensation to affected farmers. The decision comes amid a spate of suicides by farmers across the State over crop loss due to scanty rainfall and pest attack.
After two-day deliberation on farmers’ problems, the party has decided to make an assessment of crop loss at field level and identify the actual cultivators. The objective is to ensure that none of the affected farmers are deprived of getting compensation, said State BJP vice-president Samir Mohanty.
As a majority of the affected farmers are sharecroppers and the State Government does not have authentic data on them, BJP leaders will visit all the affected areas from November 22 to 30 and meet farmers who had lost their kharif crops in the twin natural calamities.
BJP has been opposing the State Government’s decision authorising sarpanchs to identify the actual cultivators. As a majority of the sarpanchs belong to the BJD, there is every possibility of manipulation in the selection of beneficiaries and preparation of list on party line. Since this has happened in the past when compensation was given to fake farmers, the BJP does not want to give scope to the ruling party workers to gobble up the compensation amount of the actual farmers this time, Mohanty said.
Alleging that the State Government has left the distressed farmers to fend for themselves after announcing relief measures in two separate packages, Mohanty said the BJP has decided to extend all possible help to the farmers at this hour of their crisis.
Presiding over a meeting of BJP Krushak Morcha here, BJP president Basanta Panda urged the State Government to assess the crop loss and distribute compensation to the farmers in a time-bound manner failing which the party will take up the agitation at panchayat level.