Making an issue of a suicide by a distressed farmer clad in BJP poll T-shirt ahead of Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis ‘public rally in Buldhana district of eastern Maharashta, the Opposition on Monday slammed Fadnavis for lack of “insensitivity” and failure to visit the family members of the deceased farmers.

A day after 38-year old Raju Talware was found hanging from a tree branch in his native village in Buldhana district on Sunday morning near the venue of the Chief Minister’s rally venue, former deputy chief minister and senior NCP leader Ajit Pawar said in Pune on Monday: “The farmers’ suicides are continuing unabated. Yesterday, a distressed farmer committed suicide the chief minister’s rally venue. He was wearing B-T-shirt. Despite such an unfortunate incidents having taken place near the CM’s rally venue, he did not bother to visit the family of deceased farmer”.

The farmer’s body was found hanging to a tree branch in native Khatked village at 8.30 am. He was sporting a colourful T-shirt with the BJP symbol ‘Lotus’ embossed on it along with the campaign slogan, “Punha Aanuya Aaple Sarkar” (Let’s Re-elect Our Government). The T-shirts had been distributed by the BJP  to activists ahead of the October 21 Assembly elections. The incident happened on a day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah were in

Maharashtra to address election rallies.

Dubbing the incident as “extremely serious”, Shiv Sena farmers’ leader Kishore Tiwari asked the various political parties to cognisance of the agrarian crisis and consequent farmers’ distress in the State. “ This kind of incidents turn focus on the gravity of the agrarian crisis in the State.  The Government should take concrete measures to prevent the situation from going out of hand,” Tiwari said.

Ajit Pawar’s attack against Fadnavis over farmer suicides comes on the heels of the chief minister’s charge that the continued farmers’ suicides in the state were a fallout of the “sins” committed by former Union Agriculture Minister and NCP president Sharad Pawar and his policies.

At their election rallies, the NCP and Congress leaders have been slamming the Devendra Fadnavis Government for its failure to arrest the farmers’ suicides and initiative concrete measures to resolve the agrarian distress in the state. They have also been targeting the ruling BJP for its failure to implement the farmer loan waiver scheme.

The severity of the agrarian crisis in Maharashtra should be seen in the context of the unabated farmers’ suicides and poor implementation of the farm loan waiver scheme announced by the BJP-led saffron alliance Government in the state.

The available official statistics, obtained by RTI activist Jeetendra Ghadge,  reveal that the   four years from 6268 in 2015 to 11,995 in 2018. Incidentally, in the first four months of 2019, as many as 808 farmers committed suicides in various parts of the state. The farmers’ suicides are continuing unabated.

The Opposition’s charge against the BJP-led saffron alliance Government in Maharashtra is that the Devendra Fadnavis dispensation has badly implemented  its the  34,022 crore  loan waiver scheme “Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Krishi Samman Yojana” which it announced on June 4 2017.

Seeking to blunt the criticism of the Opposition parties, Fadnavis had lashed out at Sr Pawar an election  in Akot taluka of the epi-centre of farmer suicide belt— Akola district in Vidarbha region on Saturday.

“Farmer suicides are the sins of Sharad Pawar and his Government in Maharashtra. It started and increased during your regime,” Fadnavis had said

“Pawar is talking about farmer suicides in his rallies in Vidarbha. I want to ask him, who was in power in Maharashtra when farmers started committing suicides,” Fadnavis had pointed out.

Fadnavis had charged that Pawar had stopped irrigation water supply to eastern Maharashtra and said the latter’s “corrupt policies”  had deprived the farmers of Vidarbha region of flow of funds from the earlier DF Government in the State and UPA Government at the Centre “You stopped water being supplied to Vidarbha region. You were a Minister at the Centre and you were in power in Maharashtra for the last 15 years (between 1999-2014). Your corrupt practices siphoned off funds meant for Vidarbha’s farmers.

You slowed down irrigation in this region. Hence, farmers are forced to commit suicide,” Fadnavis had said.

Fadnavis’s contention was that in regions of the state where water was readily available for irrigation, there were no farmers’ suicides, whereas areas which there was no sufficient irrigation water, farmers had committed suicides.