Maharashtra: All India Kisan Sabha holds farmers convention amid rising cotton, soyabean prices

Beed (Maharashtra) [India], March 8 : Professor Madhura Swaminathan inaugurated the Cotton and Soyabean Farmers' State Convention organised by the All India Kisan Sabha Maharashtra unit at Beed district.
Madhura Swaminathan is the head of the Economic Analysis Unit at the Indian Statistical Institute in Bengaluru. She is also the daughter of Bharat Ratna awardee Dr MS Swaminathan.
Over 1,000 farmers from various districts attended the convention held on Thursday.
The main objective of this convention was to draw attention to the plunging prices of cotton and soyabean, the two main crops in the Vidarbha and Marathwada regions that have led the state and the country in the number of suicides of debt-ridden peasants.
An equally important objective was to counter the RSS-BJP narrative of dividing the people on the lines of religion and caste, through a counter-narrative that focuses on their real issues and the reasons for them.
During the convention, Madhura Swaminathan placed a well-argued case for a legal guarantee of a remunerative MSP not only for cotton and soyabean but for all major crops.
AIKS State General Secretary Dr Ajit Nawale placed the main resolution which demanded Rs 12,000 per quintal for cotton, Rs 8,000 per quintal for soyabean, and a legal guarantee for MSP for all crops as per the Swaminathan Commission formula of C2 + 50 per cent. He also placed the rationale behind these demands and then called for an intensive campaign in all villages concentrating on these demands and targeting the BJP-led central and state governments who are refusing to concede them.
AIKS state office bearers from different regions - Uday Narkar, Yashwant Zade, Sunil Malusare, Arjun Adey, Uddhav Poul, Shankar Sidam, and Chandrakant Ghorkhana - seconded the resolution, after which it was unanimously adopted.
In the concluding speech of the convention, AIKS National President Ashok Dhawale placed the MSP, loan waiver, crop insurance, pension, and other burning peasant issues in the national perspective of the ongoing SKM-CTU-led nationwide struggle, and called for an intensive campaign to defeat the anti-peasant, anti-people and pro-corporate-communal RSS-BJP regime in the coming crucial general elections.
He also called for greatly strengthening the AIKS, which was the organisation of two towering Members of Parliament who were elected from Beed district in 1967 and 1977 respectively - former AIKS National President Krantisinh Nana Patil, and former AIKS State President Gangadhar Appa Burande.
Hundreds of activists of the AIKS, CITU, AIAWU, SFI, DYFI, and AIDWA from the Beed district had worked untiringly for three weeks to ensure the success of this convention. Their sterling work was acknowledged by the senior leader of the teachers' movement P S Ghadge, who placed the vote of thanks.
An AIKS Maharashtra state committee meeting was held at the end, which took some important decisions.
AIKS State President Umesh Deshmukh, AIKS District President Ajay Burande, APMC Majalgaon Director Datta Dake, AIKS District Secretary Murlidhar Nagargoje and AIKS State Vice President Kisan Gujar were also present at the convention.