North Indian

Mumbai, Mar 9 (UNI) An hectic political and official agenda is awaiting as the Maharashtra Legislature will begin its six-week Budget Session tomorrow, with the customary address to the joint Session by new Governor S C Jamir.

Issues such as the North Indian-Maharashtrian tussle and loan waiver to farmers will dominate the Session, which would see State Finance Minister Jayant Patil, who is handling the portfolio since 1999, and has already created a record of producing 10 consecutive budgets, table another budget on March 19.

The Session would also witness hectic political activities, as seven Rajya Sabha MPs and nine MLCs will be elected by the 288 members of legislative assembly on March 26.

The nomination of 12 MLCs by the Governor is also expected to take place during this Session.

Though the Central Government had announced a loan waiver for the farmers whose land holding is upto five acres, the announcement was not taken very enthusiastically by the politicians and the farmers in rain-fed Vidarbha and Marathwada regions, where the landholding was between 10 to 20 acres.

Already, BJP leader Nitin Gadkari has raised doubts over the state farmers reaping the benefit of the loan waiver scheme. He alleged that it might only strengthen the weak cooperative banks, which were mostly managed by NCP and the congress leaders.

Interestingly, even Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee President Prabha Rau also joined the opposition and demanded that the Centre should enhance the ceiling of land with regard to the rain-fed areas of Vidarbha and Marathwada, so that loan waiver could benefit farmers even with land holding of upto 15 acres in rain-fed areas.

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