BJP regime saw more farmer suicides

Mumbai: Maharashtra recorded 32,605 farmer suicides between 2001 and 2019, a revenue department data accessed by The Asian Age has revealed.

Moreover, the number of farmers committing suicide increased every year, the data further showed. The data analysis also pointed out that 14,898 farmers committed suicide between 2015 and 2019 when the BJP-Shiv Sena was in power.

On the other hand, 8,071 farmers committed suicide between 2010 and 2014, when the state was governed by the Congress-NCP alliance. According to the data, 1613 farmers committed suicide in the first five years of the 21st century. The lowest numbers of the farmer suicides — 62 — were recorded in the year 2001.

The data also pointed out that Maharashtra recorded 11,377 farmer suicides in the first decade of the 21st century — 2001 to 2010.

In the second decade, until 2019, 21,222 farmers had taken the drastic step. This indicated that the figure almost doubled in this decade.

The highest number of farmer suicides in the last 19 years was recorded in 2015 (3273), followed by 3099 farmers in 2016 and 2932 farmers in 2017.

Raju Shetti, leader of the Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana (SSS), said that the entire system has failed to curb the problem.

“The condition has deteriorated under the NDA government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Natural calamity and global warming have also added fuel to deteriorate the agriculture sector,” he said.

He also blamed the current dispensation of paying less than optimal prices for the produce, leading to farmers not even getting the input cost.

“The minimum support price (MSP) has not been increased during the NDA regime,” alleged Mr Shetti, who was an alliance partner of the BJP during 2014 election.

To alleviate the crisis, former chief minister Devendra Fadnavis led government used to claim that they had invested a huge amount of funds to improve the agricultural growth rate and increase the income of farmers.