Uttar Pradesh raises sugarcane purchase price by ₹25 per quintal

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday announced a ₹25 per quintal hike in the purchase price of sugarcane, in a bid to woo sugarcane farmers ahead of assembly elections next year.

At a meeting of farmers organised by the BJP’s Kisan Morcha, Adityanath said the government has “decided that the variety of sugarcane for which ₹325 per quintal was paid to farmers, that price has been increased to ₹350…”

“The government has also decided to increase the price of ordinary sugarcane variety, to ₹340 [per quintal], up from ₹315. The government has also decided to the hike the value of the ‘anupyukt’ [less yielding] variety of sugarcane by ₹25 per quintal.”

The CM said the government move will enable sugarcane farmers to increase their income by 8 per cent, and will transform the lives of 45 lakh farmers in the state.

Adityanath linked the law and order situation in UP to the interests of farmers. He accused the previous Samajwadi Party government, which was in power from 2012 to 2017, of “honouring rioters” and claimed that not a single riot had taken place in UP since the BJP came to power.

Farmers in parts of western UP have been staging protests against the three new farm laws introduced by the Centre. This has threatened to upset the BJP’s caste calculus and hopes of consolidating the non-Yadav OBC votes as the Jats, a largely agrarian community, have been at the forefront of the agitation.

Since 2014 Lok Sabha election, months after riots hit Muzaffarnagar and adjoining areas and politically ruptured its social fabric, the BJP has benefitted from the support of the Jats and other Hindu communities, helping it sweep both assembly and Lok Sabha polls despite the coming together of the opposition parties.