Gadkari blames UPA for sugarcane crisis in Maharashtra

Aurangabad, Maharashtra, Mar 1 (UNI) BJP State Unit Chief Nitin Gadkari today flamed the worsening sugarcane crisis in Maharashtra ''the ill-will and anger'' of UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and Finance Minister P Chidambaram towards Union Agricultuere Minister Sharad Pawar.

Addressing a press conference here, he said that it is a fact that a majority of sugar factories in the State fall in the western Maharashtra, which has been a stronghold of the NCP supremo and said that the issue remained neglected by the Center due to the ''anger and ill-will'' of the top UPA leaders towards him.

Mr Chidambaram, while presenting the Union budget yesterday, did not touch upon the sugarcane crisis in the State, Mr Gadkari said.

The BJP leader, who was here to participate in the election rally of ZP and Panchayat Samiti Elections, alleged that the UPA government had discouraged the manufacture of ethanol by sugar factories, initiated by the earlier NDA government, and held the UPA government responsible for the present mess in the sugar industry.

''If the policy initiated by the NDA government was pursued by the present UPA government, then excess sugarcane could have been utilized by cane growers to produce its bi-product ethanol, Mr Gadkari said.

The former Maharashtra Minister said the Center did not purchase a single drop of ethanol manufactured by sugar factories in the State this year.

Mr Gadkari said sugarcane growers in the State are left with no other option but to burn about 15 lakh standing cane crops in their farms itself due to a bumper yield this year, as it may not be able to take it to the crushing mills.

UNI