CPM blames NDA for farmer suicides

Vijayawada: CPM General Secretary Sitaram Yechuri on Wednesday said his party would organise people’s protests to highlight failures of the NDA government all over the country between May 15 and 30 before the commencement of monsoon session of Parliament.

Addressing a meet-the-press programme here, he said 12,000 to 16,000 farmers were committing suicide in the country every year since the NDA coming to power at the Centre. Attacking the BJP-led Central government, Yechuri said that the NDA had failed to fulfil poll promises on employment and relief to farmers. Entire Tamil Nadu was under the influence of drought and about 200 farmers ended their lives unable to cope with difficulties, he said.

Alleging that the NDA was boasting about GDP growth by distorting facts, the CPM leader said both employment and farming was ignored. As against poll promise of creating two crore jobs annually, opportunities for the youth came down by 1.06 lakh. Employment was on the wane even in PSUs, he added.

The CPM leader alleged that the Centre had failed to implement its promise on MSP. As a result farmers’ suicides were on the rise. Public distribution system had suffered a lot as about 60 per cent of eligible people were not able to get ration as they were not linked to Aadhaar.

Both the Centre and the TDP had been making MoUs with foreign companies and no one was coming to India to invest here. On the other hand, prices of essential commodities had been skyrocketing, he lamented.The CPM was wholeheartedly welcoming the parties coming forward to grill the government over its failures in the next session of Parliament, Yechuri said.

He expressed concern over increasing communalism and fundamentalism all over the country. “The ruling party was trying to communal polarisation. It has failed to control attacks on Kashmir,” he said.