Former Union Finance Minister and senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yashwant Sinha ended his stir “for the farmers’ cause” in the Akola district of Maharashtra on Wednesday.
Mr.Sinha, who had been agitating in Akola since Monday, withdrew his ‘sit-in’ agitation at the police ground in front of the Akola district police headquarters after Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis spoke to him over the phone.
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“Our demands have been fully met. Therefore, we have ended our agitation. Everything has been accepted [by the government]. There were a couple of sticking points. The Chief Minister called me today. I told him about them and he readily accepted those demands also,” Mr. Sinha told
The senior BJP leader also informed that he would be monitoring to see whether the government and district administration fulfilled their promises or not.
“In the meeting with the local Collector, we have agreed on a date for the fulfilment of these promises. I have made the farmers promise me that they would not take the suicide route. If they have a problem, they will approach somebody and we will all try to solve those problems, but he should not commit suicide,” Mr. Sinha added.
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The farmers’ demands, for which Mr. Sinha was agitating, include the purchase of some crops by the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. (NAFED), assessment of and compensation for cotton farmers’ crop loss due to bollworm attacks, and action against multinational companies for supplying defective seeds.
The former Union Finance Minister’s protest had caused embarrassment to the BJP-led Maharashtra government, and the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, in which Mr. Sinha’s son is a Minister.
Senior Maharashtra Cabinet Minister Chandrakant Patil had appealed to Mr. Sinha to end his stir after senior politicians like Mamata Banerjee, Uddhav Thackeray and Arvind Kejriwal offered their support to Mr. Sinha.