Opposition force adjournment; agitation across state

MUMBAI: Accusing the Shiv Sena-led government in Maharashtra of "betraying" farmers over the issue of giving loan waiver, the opposition BJP staged protests in parts of the state on Tuesday. The BJP forced adjournment of both the houses of the state legislature on this issue. Their members created pandemonium in both the houses, forcing the presiding officers to adjourn it. A party delegation headed by Leader of Opposition in the assembly Devendra Fadnavis also approached Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari over the issue and sought his intervention to ensure peasants get blanket loan waiver. The BJP's protest outside tehsil offices in the state came a day after the Sena-NCP-Congress government released the first list of 15,358 beneficiaries of the farm loan waiver scheme announced late last year. Fadnavis said the delegation submitted a total of 60,000 letters written by farmers to the governor of Kolhapur district on several of their demands. Some of these farmers wrote letters using their own blood, said the former BJP CM, who had announced a mega loan waiver during his tenure. Ahead of the delegation's meeting with the governor, Fadnavis, who headed the BJP's protest at Azad Maidan in south Mumbai, said the BJP's statewide stir will continue till cultivators get justice. "We apprised the governor on the issue and sought his intervention in ensuring complete loan waiver by the government," Fadnavis said. -FPJ Political Bureau