Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha on Wednesday suspended his three-day-long agitation undertaken in support of farmers in Akola district in eastern Maharashtra, after the Maharashtra Government accepted all his seven major demands.
Talking to mediapersons at Akola’s police grounds where he had for the past three been staging an agitation along with farmers to press for their various demands, Sinha said: “Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis spoke to me. He has accepted all the demands of the farmers. This should not be seen as victory or defeat of any one. But, the development would benefit farmers across the Maharashtra. Since all their demands have been accepted by the State Government, I am suspending my agitation”.
Fadnavis had called Sinha at 11 am and discussed at length the farmers’ demands with the latter. “We had a good discussion. The Chief Minister assured me that he would consider positively all the demands”.
Sinha, who had been detained along with 250 farmers outside the Akola district collectorate on Monday evening, had received support for his agitation from various political parties, including the Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party, Congress and other smaller State parties. In addition, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Mamata Banerjee had also extended his support the former Finance Minister’s agitation.
Tushar Gandhi, the great grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, had personally met Sinha at Akola on Tuesday and extended his support to the latter’s agitation.
The demands that the farmers made included compensation to cotton farmers for losses suffered by them because pink bollworm attack on their crops, action against seed companies manufacturing bogus Bt seeds, bank officials and administration should execute loan waivers by personally going to gram panchayats, 100 per cent compensation for crop losses to moong, urad and soyabean farmers, purchase of all farm produce at minimum support price by NAFED, the uninterrupted power supply to agricultural pump sets and removal of unjust conditions from the gold mortgage waiver scheme of the State Government for farmers.