The Nationalist Congress Party has decided to celebrate December 12, the birthday of the party chief Sharad Pawar as the “Kisan Diwas” across the country.
Mr Pawar, whose parliamentary career began in 1967, remained active inside and outside Parliament and is a legislature for more than four decades.
NCP general secretary and MP Govindrao Adik on Monday said that the party has decided to highlight Mr Pawar’s contribution to agriculture and cooperative movement on this occasion.
If Mr Pawar’s initiative to waive off agriculture loan was a major contribution to the victory of the UPA II in the Lok Sabha election held in 2009, his policy of increasing minimum support price to food grains and reducing farm loan interest has strengthened agriculture sector, he said.
Besides, cooperative sector in Maharashtra especially sugar factories survived because of his support, he pointed out.
Mr Pawar had also made experiments to make dry farming profitable and encouraged horticulture when he was the chief minister of Maharashtra.
The Maratha strong man was a Maharashtra chief minister for four terms, became defence minister in the Narsimha Rao government and was also a Leader of the Opposition the Lok Sabha during 1998. In fact, the Congress had won 42 of the total 48 Lok Sabha seats from Maharashtra under his leadership in 1998. That time, the Congress was out of power both at the Centre and in Maharashtra.