The simmering discontent among office bearers of different farmers' organisations on deciding the order of speakers at the monthly farmers' grievances day meeting came out in the open at Friday's meeting with a section of farmers opposing the randomisation method introduced by the district administration.
With the issue being raised repeatedly for sometime now, Collector Jayashree Muralidharan had introduced the randomisation process to determine the order of speakers at the meeting over the past few months.
Unhappy with the computerised system, some of the farmers have been demanding that they be allowed to speak based on seniority and depending on the political affiliations of the organisations concerned.
A few others, however, appeared to be inclined to accept the randomisation system.At a consultative meeting held some days ago, the farmers' representatives were asked to decide among themselves and give a list to be followed.
Though the farmers representatives had complied with the request, some organisations were said to have objected to it later demanding that political affiliations not be a consideration, forcing Ms.Muralidharan to instruct officials to resort to the randomisation at Friday's meeting also. But the issue resulted in a heated debate when the officials decided to follow the system.
While a section of farmers insisted that the list given by them should be followed, a few others were not in favour of it.
Proceedings were disrupted for some time as the farmers indulged in heated arguments among themselves as the District Revenue Officer (in-charge) P.Kanagarathinam, who chaired the early part of the meeting in the absence of the Collector, and Joint Director of Agriculture J.Sekar struggled to control the situation.
With a section of farmers threatening to stage a walkout, some of the farmers urged the district administration to keep politics out of the issue.
“Please keep politics out of the meeting and regulate the process,” pleaded N.Ganesan of the TN Milk Producers Welfare Association.
