Modi govt worried, may hike Kharif crop prices

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Modi govt worried, may hike Kharif crop prices

Early rains and package may douse fire

Harish Gupta

New Delhi, June 8

With farmers agitation spreading like a wild fire, Modi government is taking every possible step to douse the fire. If the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was directed to handle the issue with sensitivity rather than be in a denial mode that farmers were not killed in police firing. It was after the Prime Minister personally spoke to Chouhan before leaving for Astana, that the MP government announced a cash compensation of Rs one crore each to those killed in the firing. The Madhya Pradesh Home Minister who had blamed the Congress for firing on the farmers had eat the humble pie and confessed that they were killed in the police firing.

As if this was not enough the MP Government is also opening new procurement centers across the state to procure pulses an onion at much higher price.

The prime minister’s focus before departing for Astana was to ensure that farmers’ agitation doesn’t spread in other states particularly in the neighbouring Gujrat and Rajasthan. Since loan waiver package have already been announced in UP and Maharashtra, it is expected that situation will be under control.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh was asked to oversee the situation in states in the absence of the Prime Minister. It was also decided that Union Cabinet’s decision relating to 14 crops of Kharif season be deferred. Union Agriculture Radha Mohan Singh who was to announce Cabinet’s decision, deferred his press conference yesterday. No reasons were given either by his ministry or by the government. It seems that the government wants to announce the steep hike in procurement prices of Kharif crops in a big way. It may now be done after the return of Prime Minister and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley from Paris.

The government also expects that the agitation will subside as the Monsoon is setting in MP, Rajasthan and other parts of North India within the next few days.

Federally Yours

by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group

Indian politicians are obsessed with thinking of politics as a mere game of numbers- not one of parties gaining support, or losing it, due to the correctness, or otherwise, and how they're seen to be influencing people cutting across regional or caste lines. An alliance at the top, politicians love to believe, is spontaneously translated to addition of numbers at the bottom. It is not smart thinking as, with the spread of literacy, awareness and satellite television, voters and even lower-rung party workers are getting increasingly prone to draw their own road-maps. Instead, our politicians still talk of merger and alliance as India has remained fixed in the 70's, when the concept of a "front" or large alliance forged at the top and going down to the bottom gained currency for the first time.