Farmer leader and Karnataka Sarvodaya Party MLA K.S. Puttannaiah will move a private member’s bill during the winter session of the State legislature scheduled to be held this month-end at the Suvarna Vidhana Soudha in Belagavi, said Chamarasa Malipatil, honorary president of Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha.
Addressing a media conference here on Wednesday, he said that Janapara Sanghatanegala Mahamaithri, a conglomerate of different people’s organisations, would launch an indefinite demonstration outside the offices of the Deputy Commissioners in all districts on November 21 in support of the bill.
“While our MLA raises farmers’ issue in the form of a private member’s bill during the winter session, we will mobilise people in large numbers in agitation across the State supporting him,” he said.
Loan waiver
When asked, Mr. Malipatil said that the main issue of the bill would be waiver of what he called comprehensive loan — all borrowings from nationalised banks and cooperative societies. He criticised the successive governments, both at the Centre and the State, for failing to address farm debts.
“The Union government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently waived corporate tax worth Rs. 1.14 lakh crore to help 100 corporate empires. The total loan of 9.3 crore farmers would be around Rs. 1.15 lakh crore. The fact that the interest shown by the government in helping 100 big business entities is not being shown to help 9.3 crore farmers itself shows government priorities,” he said. What the United Progressive Alliance government did in a decade to help big businesses has successfully been done by National Democratic Alliance government within just two years, he added.
“Both the Congress and the BJP are the same when it comes to safeguarding the interest of big businesses. Both the parties utterly neglected the farm sector that has employed the largest number of people,” he said.
Recalling the BJP’s Lok Sabha election promise that it will implement the M.S. Swaminathan panel report that recommended scientific minimum support price —cost of cultivation plus 50 of it — for each farm produce, Mr. Malipatil attacked the Union government for submitting an affidavit in the Supreme Court expressing its inability to implement the report. “The Union government is able to waive large corporate tax. It is able to announce huge tax concessions for the wealthy class. But, it is unable to pay scientific minimum support price for farm produces,” he said.
Mallikarjun Satyampete, Bheemeshwar Rao, Shankrappa Javalagere, Nagaratna Patil, Vishwanath Reddy Jeenur and other farmer leaders were present.
