Mumbai: BJP MP Gopal Shetty has courted controversy by making an insensitive statement on burning issue of farmer suicides.
As per Shetty, it is a fashion among farmers to end lives!
The statement comes at a time when 124 farmers in Maharashtra had committed suicide since January 2016 reflecting the desperate condition in which the agrarian society has been living in.
“Not all farmers’ suicides happen due to unemployment and starvation. A fashion is going on. A trend is on,” Shetty, who represents north Mumbai, said after an event held in Borivili here yesterday.
“If Maharashtra government is giving five lakh rupees as compensation, then some other government in neighbouring state is giving seven lakh. There’s a competition in these people in giving money (compensation) to farmers,” the first time MP said.
Notably, the state government had two days back informed the Bombay High Court that 124 farmers have committed suicide in the state since January this year. The HC had asked the Centre what kind of assistance it provides to the state to deal with the grim agrarian crisis.
Advocate General Srihari Aney had informed the bench that 124 farmers have taken their lives in the past one-and-half month, of whom 20 cases were reported from Osmanabad alone. The AG said factors such as crop failure due to scanty rainfall, meagre water supply for drinking and growing crops, insufficient capacity to repay loans and pressure from banks and money lenders were the causes that drove the farmers to commit suicide.
