Karnataka which is witnessing a horrible agrarian depression is witnessing continued farmers suicides and now political blame game has started on the issue which has shaken the State. The BJP leaders who visited the farmer’s families in different part of the State find the trend a failure of Congress Government led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah. BJP spokesperson, CT Ravi, directly implicated the Government for the failure and suggested that Government should take a “Vishwas Yatra” to instill confidence among farmers.
He said, “The State Government has failed in stopping farmers from committing suicides .... I feel it is necessary for prominent people including agricultural experts to build confidence among distressed farmers, which can stop them from committing suicide.”
Disputing Government’s claims that 199 farmers committed suicide, he said BJP had “found out” that 221 farmers ended their lives. According to their finding, most of the farmers having small holdings between three to ten acres of land have committed suicide. In last five days alone, as many as 50 farmers committed suicide, Ravi claimed, adding, the incidents had increased in last seven months.
Government should make crop insurance policy mandatory which will give emotional support to farmers in distress, he said. He also lamented that “only 63 farmers have got the relief and cases of 23 other farmers have been rejected.” Ravi said the Government should announce waiver of short term and long-term loans for farmers.
In the cross fire of political blame game farmer suicides continued unabated and according to records it has crossed over 150 in just two months.
Karnataka is reeling severely under a spate of farmer suicides and more than 150 farmers in just two months (June and July) have brutally ended their lives putting the Siddaramaiah Government in a fix. Even though the farmers are facing one of the toughest crises, the Chief Minister failed to understand the unabated suicides of farming community even after having met them. Siddaramaiah also addressed them through radio in his “Dil ki Baat” recently. But he has failed to connect with realities so far and suicides of farmers continue unabated. The disconnect of the political class with the farming realities has added to the ongoing crisis putting a pressure on the crop production and market dynamics.
Meanwhile, the State Congress party has prepared a report to submit to Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi who is expected to visit some of the families of the farmers who were killed in the agrarian depression. State Congress chief G Parameshwara suggested to the Siddaramaiah Government to defer repayment of crop loans borrowed by farmers from nationalised commercial banks and Government-run cooperatives by one year. According to G Parameshwara, State Congress chief, of the 106 farmers who committed suicide between 2013 and 2015, 68 ended their lives in a span of just four months between April and July this year. Of them, 32 farmers ended their lives in July alone, he said.
In another development it is learnt that Congress president Sonia Gandhi called up former Chief Minister SM Krishna to seek his opinion on how to tackle the increasing number of farmer suicides in Karnataka.
A close confidant of Krishna said Sonia wanted to know the reasons for farmers ending lives in such large numbers and how the State and the Ministers are responding to the situation. She also wanted to know the responsibility being taken by the Government and the party.
Agrarian distress is written on the face of the sugarcane farmers here. It is not just possible to analyse the factors as reasons for the deaths. Overproduction of sugarcane, the import of sugar (15 lakh tonnes in 2013, and 24 lakh tonnes in 2014), the fall in cocoon prices from Rs 300 to Rs 140 a kg, and a subsidy reduction of Rs 2 on every litre of milk has added to the plight of farmers in Karnataka.