'Sonia shedding crocodile tears for farmers' : BJP

New Delhi, May 8 (UNI) The BJP today said Congress president Sonia Gandhi asking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to 'carefully scrutinise' the Indo-Asean Free Trade Agreement to safeguard domestic farmers was nothing but ''shedding crocodile tears'', and blamed several Congress ruled state governments for their inability to help the farmers out of the crisis.

Taking note of the letter written by Ms Gandhi to Prime Minister, BJP Spokesman Prakash Javadekar said the malady lies in UPA government's inability to come out with a clear policy on agriculture and the failures of the Congress ruled states to help the farmers, driven to commit suicide. There is virtually no institutional lending for the farmers which could take care of their day to day requirements, that was forcing them to take the extreme step in desperation.

He said suicides were occurring in cotton growing states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Punjab and the unhindered import of cotton, produced by United States and European Union, were heavily subsidising these states farmers.

The Centre had not used duty to curb imports to help the domestic farmers and the responsibility to purchase cotton from the farmers had been abandoned resulting in the disaster, he alleged.

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