Cong mounts pressure on Fadnavis Govt

Mounting pressure on the BJP-led saffron alliance Government ahead of the Monsoon Session of the Maharashtra legislature beginning on July 13 for farmers’ loan waiver, the Opposition Congress workers and affected farmers on Thursday took out morchas to the District Collectors’ offices across the State to press its demand.

On the first day of its two-day agitation demanding complete loan waiver for the debt-ridden farmers across the State, former Chief Minister and Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee president Ashok Chavan led the protests in Nanded against the delay in announcing waiver of loans borrowed by the drought-hit farmers in various parts of the State. Chavan, accompanied by former State DP Sawant, led a large number of Congress workers and farmers to the Nanded district headquarters.

leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil led a similar morcha of Congress workers and affected farmers, in Ahmednagar district. In the neighbouring Pune district, another former Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan led a large number of his party workers and affected farmers to the local Collector’s office.

Former MPCC president Manikrao Thakre led similar protests in Akola in Vidarbha region, while former Minister Madhukar Chavan led a similar morcha in Osmanabad.Former Minister and senior MlA Naseem Khan and MPCC General Secretary Sanjay Dutt, who led the protests in Thane district, condemned the police lathi charge against their party activists demonstrating peacefully outside the Thane Collector office. They alleged that the BJP-led saffron alliance Government was trying to throttle the “voice of people and the Opposition” by adopting such “undemocratic tactics” tom deal with protesters..

“The police lathi-charge was inhuman, unwarranted and barbaric. We will raise this issue in the State legislature in the forthcoming monsoon session of the State legislature and demand strict action against those officials responsible for it,” the Congress leaders saidThe Maharashtra Congress is planning similar morchas in the districts of Ratnagiri, Satara, Washim, Hingoli, Nashik, Jalgaon, Chandrapur, Parbhani, Jalna, Buldana, Amravati, Wardha, Nandurbar and latur, on Friday.