New Delhi: The winter session of the Parliament began on a stormy on Thursday after the Opposition raised an uproar over sugarcane price rise issue. The Lok Sabha has been adjourned till Friday, with Opposition parties blaming the Manmohan Singh-government on the issue.
The UPA government last month issued an ordinance setting the sugarcane price at Rs 129.85 per quintal during the 2009-10, much below the Rs 280 per quintal that farmers have been demanding.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh and deputy Opposition leader Sushma Swaraj raised the issue in the Lok Sabha Thursday, soon joined by other parties, slamming the Congress-led Centre for ‘injustice to farmers’.
“The move is unjustified, it favours mill-owners and hits poor farmers. The Centre is not paying heed to farmer rights…farmers are being cheated, they are being made scapegoats,” Swaraj said, as quoted by news channels.
Samajwadi Party (SP) chief Mulayam Singh Yadav joined the agitation and said they would continue their protest till farmers don’t get respite.
“This is simply robbery…an act to kick farmers’ stomachs…the government sugar price policy only benefits mill-owners. But they won’t be able to continue this drama for long. Already the farmers are taking their agitation to the streets,” Yadav told reporters Thursday.
Senior SP leader Amar Singh said: “This government is a mute spectator to farmers’ misery. Blame Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar for the sugarcane price rise.
“But now we will make them listen to sugarcane farmers.”
Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) leader Brinda Karat said the government’s priority is ‘misplaced’.
Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) leader Ajit Singh said no other government has brought such a ‘black law’ against farmers as the UPA.
While the Opposition parties cornered the government on sugarcane price in the Parliament, about 10,000 farmers from UP, Haryana, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, took the protest to the streets in the capital.
The protest march by farmers rally belonging to the RLD, Bhartiya Kisan Union Tikait and Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangathan, started at the Ramlila ground and will culminate at Jantar Mantar in central Delhi, bringing traffic to almost a halt.
Meanwhile, Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Sanghvi said the opposition is taking the Parliament to ransom.
"We will look into the arguements put forward by the opposition in the Parliament," Singhvi said.
