Mumbai, Apr 21 (PTI) Farmer leader and former MP Raju Shetti has accused the Maharashtra government of not fulfilling poll promises, including of loan waiver, made to cultivators, and questioned the ruling dispensation’s spending on VIP visits.

Speaking to reporters in Nashik on Sunday, the Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana president claimed the government’s policies were “anti-farmer”.

“What happened to the loan waiver that the Mahayuti government announced before the elections (last year)?” Shetti asked.

“Soybean farmers are not receiving help. We had protested by taking onions to the Mantralaya (state secretariat), we were jailed, only after that did the government wake up and remove the export duty on onions,” he added.

Shetti also targeted the government over a lunch hosted by NCP MP Sunil Tatkare at his residence in Raigad district near Mumbai for Union Home Minister Amit Shah during his visit there on April 12.

“You spend Rs 1.5 crore to build a helipad so that Union minister Amit Shah can have a bowl of ‘aamras’ and a ‘modak’ at someone’s house, but you don’t give even Re 1 to farmers. Are you not ashamed?” he charged.

“On that day, Shah visited MP Sunil Tatkare’s house for a private meal. Social activist Anjali Damania has claimed on social media that the event cost the exchequer Rs 1.5 crore,” he said.

Shetti further claimed that a farmer, who had taken a loan of Rs 1.5 lakh, and his pregnant wife allegedly committed suicide the same night in Parbhani district.

“The government continues to ignore such cases,” he alleged.

Shetti said Amit Shah reached Tatkare’s residence in Sutarwadi by a helicopter, for which a four-unit helipad was constructed.

“A tender of Rs 1.39 crore (for the helipad) was issued on April 7 and published in a newspaper on April 9,” he claimed.

Blaming the government for the drop in onion prices, Shetti said had the export duty been lifted on time, prices would not have crashed.

The government should provide a minimum support price of Rs 1,500 per quintal for onions. “We do not trust NAFED (National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India), which procures the farm produce on the instructions of the state,” he claimed. PTI ND GK