After NCP, Congress plans 18-day agitation against Maharashtra government
Both parties to raise farmers’ issues; Congress yatra will end on Dec 13 in Nagpur, where the legislature’s winter session will be underway
Within hours of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) announcing a state-wide 10-day march against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Maharashtra government, the Congress, too, has announced an agitation.
The party said it would start a Jan Akrosh Yatra on November 26, Aurangabad’s Constitution Day, which would culminate on December 13 in Nagpur, after covering 13 suicide-affected districts.
The decision to launch a state-wide rally was taken at a core committee meeting attended by key state leaders on Tuesday.
The Congress plans to raise issues related to farmers, including suicides and unemployment, and the government’s failure to address them.
Both key Opposition parties in Maharashtra , the Congress and the NCP, seem to be banking on the discontent and anger among farmers - over the slow pace of loan waiver disbursements, the fall in agricultural produce rates, the rise in inflation and increasing unemployment - to turn the political future in their favour.
However, unlike Sangharsh Yatra, held earlier this year to demand loan waiver for farmers, the two parties have decided to hold protest marches independently.
“After holding Jan Akrosh sabhas in various talukas and districts, the 18-day yatra will cover Marathwada and Vidarbha,” said Congress leader and former minister Abdul Sattar. “At least 800 farmers have ended their lives in the past six months in Marathwada alone. The plight of farmers in other parts of the state is the same, and we are highlighting it through this yatra.”
Sattar said the morcha in Nagpur on December 13, when the state legislature’s winter session is underway, will see the participation of lakhs of farmers .
The Congress plans to take the agitation to 50 Assembly constituencies. “We will have four meetings every day to highlight issues such as inflation, unemployment and suicides in the state,” said Vijay Vadettiwar, Congress leader from Vidarbha.