Recall Maharashtra ministers from foreign trip: Congress tells PM

Mumbai: The Maharashtra Congress on Friday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to recall two of his ministers from a foreign junket to tackle the urgent farmland crises that is gripping the state.

Senior Congress leader and ex-chief minister Prithviraj Chavan wrote a letter to Modi pointing out how the two ministers were accompanying Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Haribhau Bagde on a legislative delegation to Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

Agriculture Minister Pandurang Fundkar, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Girish Bapat, Legislative Council Chairman Ramraje Nimbalkar, several legislators from different parties and officials left on a fortnight long tour on May 1 to study parliaments there.

"It is appalling that the two ministers directly responsible for handling the current farmland crises have gone on a fifteen day junket with their families. The timing could not be worse. The farmers in the state are shocked," Chavan wrote in his letter to the PM.

He urged the PM to ask Fadnavis to "immediately recall" the two ministers back to their duty, while the official delegation led by the Speaker could continue their trip.

Ruling ally Shiv Sena Minister Ramdas Kadam also slammed the trip especially when the state was in the grip of a major agrarian crisis worsened by the recent bumper crops of "tur dal" (split pigeon pea) but let down by the procurement system.

Congress Leader of Opposition Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil also criticized the trip and said the ministers should have considered the agricultural crisis and non-stop farmers` suicides before going.