As farmers’ suicides in Odisha continued to increase with two more farmers ending their lives on Wednesday, several small Opposition parties announced their plan to launch a campaign against the Naveen Patnaik Government.
The two suicide incidents were reported from Bargarh and Nabarangpur districts during the day.
Senior leaders of the parties, including Aama Odisha Party, Odisha Jana Morcha, Samata Kranti Dal, Samruddha Odisha and Utkal Bharat, who met here issued an appeal to the distressed farmers not to take the extreme step. Observing that the faulty agriculture policy of the State government was forcing the farmers to go only for paddy cultivation, these parties have demanded that the State government initiate immediate measures to help the farmers.
The parties said that they would organise meetings at the block and gram panchayat levels shortly to create awareness among the farmers on how to cope with the crisis. These meetings will be addressed by leaders including Soumya Ranjan Patnaik of Aama Odisha Party, Pyarimohan Mohapatra of Odisha Jana Morcha, Braja Kishore Tripathy of Samata Kranti Dal, Jatish Mohanty of Samdruddha Odisha, Kharabela Swain of Utkal Bharat and former Minister Panchanan Kanungo.
Meanwhile, about 15 BJP workers were taken into custody for opposing the visit of School and Mass Education Minister Debi Prasad Mishra and Energy Minister Pranab Prakash Das to Boudh district.
Mr. Mishra and Mr. Das were in Boudh district to review implementation of different programmes of their respective departments.
