Cong makes bid to woo farmers in Gujarat, BJP to counter

Rajkot, Gujarat, Sep 7 (UNI) With Gujarat Assembly elections due in December, Congress and rebel BJP members are making all-out efforts to dislodge the Narendra Modi Government.

Under the aegis of Sardar Patel Utkarsh Samiti, a farmers convention will be held at Jasdan on Sunday by the Patidar MLAs.

Congress MLA Vithal Radadia, while speaking to UNI said a large number of farmers will attend the function which is being hosted to highlight the plight of the farmers in the state. The farmers, he said, are facing difficulties in getting power connections, erratic power supply, and are being unduly harrassed and wrongly booked for power thefts. Mr Modi is functioning like a dictator, Mr Radadia alleged.

He alleged that because of the anti-farmers policy pursued by the state government, nearly 350 farmers had committed suicide as they were unable to pay the huge fine imposed on them in power theft cases.

Due to erratic power supply, farmers have lost Rs 1000 crore farm production in a year, he alleged.

The Modi government has also reduced the number of state transport buses considerably because of which the farmers were finding it difficult to reach their produce to the markets, he alleged.

Mr Radadia claimed that BJP MPs Dr Vallabhbhai Kathiriya and Somabhai Patel would attend the convention along with dissident BJP MLAs.

After the Jasdan convention, a larger meet would be held here on September 14 which will be attended by nearly five lakh people, he claimed.

Meanwhile, on Sunday itself, the Jasdan Marketing Yard has also organised a farmers meet in which Chief Minister Narendra Modi has been invited.

BJP Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Rupani told UNI that Jasdan Khetivadi Utpan Bazar Samiti chairman Popatbhai Rajpara, who is a Congress member, will join the BJP along with 500 Congress activists during the meet. Mr Rajpara, once a friend of Jasdan Congress MLA Kunvarji Bavalia, has now turned the latter's foe and could make a dent in Bavalia's bastion.

UNI