Following a rift with his uncle and the chief of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Sharad Pawar, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Sunday disclosed he has joined the BJP and Eknath Shinde government to solve the issues of people in the state.Lashing out at the opposition party during a rally in Maharashtras Beed on Sunday, Pawar asserted that they work for the people and for this they raised the issue of soaring prices of onions with the central government.“We will always work for the benefit of the farmers. Farming does not happen without water in the fields. I have done a lot of work when I was minister for the Water Resources in the state,” he added.Taking a dig at the opposition, Pawar said that he asked state agriculture minister Dhananjay Munde to visit Delhi to discuss the onion issue with the key central leaders, and praised union minister Amit Shah for helping them out. “When the onion issue came up, many people got calls. The opposition always gives wrong information. I asked Dhananjay to go to Delhi. Dhananjay went and requested maximum help. Home Minister Amit Shah immediately bought 2 lakh metric tonnes of onion at Rs 24 per kg,” he said.Notably, onion growers in the state protested last Monday in Maharashtras Nashik region after the Central government recently levied a 40% export levy on the basic food.According to a notification sent out by the Finance Ministry on August 19, onions now carry a 40% export tariff till December 31, 2023. The export tax was announced in the midst of forecasts predicting an increase in onion prices in September. The federal government began distributing the basic vegetable from its buffer supply earlier on August 11.The central government had already planned to keep a buffer stock of 3 lakh tonnes of onions for the 2023–24 growing season. The government had a buffer reserve of 2.51 lakh tonnes of onions in 2022–2023. For price stabilisation and to cover any unforeseen needs during the season of low supply, buffer stock is kept on hand.On Tuesday, the central government began purchasing an additional 2 lakh tonnes of onions from Maharashtrian farmers. The declaration was made during a meeting between Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and Maharashtra Agriculture Minister Dhananjay Munde on Tuesday in Delhi.
