The UPA and the NDA are two sides of the same coin, and the Union Government’s lopsided policies and poor budgetary outlays are driving agriculturists across the country to rely on money lenders and forcibly end their lives, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Monday.
Addressing a public meeting here on the inaugural day of the three-day 27th State mahasabha of A.P. Agricultural Workers’ Union, Mr. Vijayan said that when compared to the UPA, the NDA “is overtly communal and anti-national”. The BJP and the RSS backed the British before Independence, and the BJP government was supporting big corporates at the cost of the farmers and agricultural labourers, he remarked.
The BJP government was silencing Opposition parties by raking up religious sentiments and dubbing those questioning war-mongering and better pay and benefits to defence personnel as anti-national, and those opposing the curbs on cattle sale as minority appeasers, Mr. Vijayan asserted.
As many as 3.2 lakh farmers committed suicide across the country, with an average of 55 farmers’ deaths a day, since the neo-liberalisation era in 1991. Charging the BJP Government with favouring big corporates and capitalists at the cost of the agriculturists and farm hands, he said the threat of agriculture, agro-processing and animal husbandry going into the clutches of big corporates loomed large.
The Centre amended the Land Acquisition Act making it easier to take over lands from farmers, he said.
In order to salvage the distressed agriculturists, the Centre must write off agricultural loans of small farmers and agricultural workers, disburse interest-free loans to them, ensure a minimum income of Rs. 15,000 for agriculture workers, grant pensions to farmers over 60 years of age and pay compensation to the kin of farmers who ended their lives. Work was being provided only for 35 to 40 days a year, despite the promise to provide 100 days of work under NREGS, he said.
