“All political parties have become drama companies, only changing script according to need when they are in ruling party or opposition,” said senior Congress MLA K.R. Ramesh Kumar.
Participating in the debate in the Legislative Assembly on the agricultural crisis, in the light of the spate of farmers’ suicides, on Tuesday, he said all parties “including Congress” had become “fiefdoms and proprietorial agencies” protecting their own family enterprises and industries.
Urging the House to look at the larger crisis rather than just suicides of farmers, he said the entire agricultural credit policy was skewed. Mr. Kumar said Rs. 1.64 lakh crore was written off as bad loan by public sector banks and a large amount of money pumped into make up for this, drawing from deposits.
“Defaulters cannot get away in such large numbers without political patronage,” he said. Those who criticize the Anna Bhagya scheme should consider how many could have been fed free with what is written off as bad loan or non-performing assets, he said.
He said there was no scientific evaluation of the market needs before deciding on the extent of cultivation of a crop or issuing licenses to factories that process them, sugar being a case in point. This had led to a situation of chaos where there was no link between production, market and all intervening processes. “The only organic link appears to be between the farmer and the rope he uses to hang himself,” he said.
Mr. Kumar said while the House was debating sugarcane crisis, few were sparing a thought for farmers in Kolar who have suffered successive droughts and cut down mango trees in 45,000 hectares.
He urged the House not to remain just a “tame Pomeranian dog”, but have enough bite to identify those who are putting farmers to misery.
