Sharad Pawar, PM Modi/File Image
The Congress party is reportedly upset over Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Sharad Pawar's meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday amid hectic parleys with Shiv Sena to form a non-BJP government in Maharashtra. The grand-old party was of the view that the meeting had a "wrong timing", if Congress sources are to be believed.
Even as speculations spiralled over their meeting, Pawar maintained he met Modi over farmer distress in Maharashtra. In a memorandum, Pawar said that he brought the "alarming situation" to the prime minister's notice and demanded a "complete and unconditional" farm loan waiver in the wake of the recent damage due to unseasonable rains.
The meeting between Modi and Pawar went on for 50 minutes. This comes two days after PM Modi praised NCP MPs for not entering the Well of the house during proceedings.
In a three-page memorandum, Pawar said crops like soyabean, paddy, finger millet, corns, bajra and vegetables like tomato and onion were at the harvesting stage in Nashik district but incessant and unseasonable rains completely ruined them.
He said 44 farmers from Nashik have committed suicide in the face of the crisis in the last 10 months.
"Due to President's rule in the state, your urgent intervention is highly necessitated. I shall be grateful if you could take immediate steps to initiate massive relief measures to ameliorate distressed farmers," the memorandum said.
He also demanded that farmers be given zero per cent credit to raise new crops and also save them from private money lenders and finance companies.
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