Mumbai: The Maharashtra Opposition BJP-Shiv Sena combine is planning to hold rallies in Jalgaon and Nagpur in support of cotton farmers. The cultivators want the government to raise the minimum support prices from Rs 3, 300 to Rs 6, 000 a quintal.
"The government has money to bail out Mallya but no money to give to the cotton farmers. If the government doesn't agree to the demands of the cotton farmers by November 20, we will start an agitation," Shiv Sena Executive President Uddhav Thackeray said.
The farmers are also demanding a fixed export policy, claiming that decisions to ban cotton export are arbitrary and engineered to benefit private traders.
Maharashtra produces 70 per cent of the country's cotton, but its cotton-producing regions are infamous for farmer suicides. Farmers say middlemen are eating into their profits. But the Centre's agricultural federation says the agitation over cotton is unwarranted and politically motivated.
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