Onion smells looming Maharashtra polls
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Govt removes onion export curb amid price rise
By Raisina Correspondent
New Delhi, September 13: The Maharashtra Assembly poll schedule may soon be announced by the Election Commission. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is getting poll ready for the Maharashtra polls.
The decision of the Centre to lift the curb on exports of onions gives ample signals of soon to be announced poll schedule in Maharashtra.
The Maharashtra Assembly poll verdict had come in 2019 on October 23. The Election Commission by convention gives at least one month for the electioneering.
Sources said that the EC could be announcing the poll schedule for Maharashtra next week. The BJP’s key poll manager and Union Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah has recently visited Maharashtra.
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At a time when the onion prices are heading northward, the Centre scrapped the minimum price threshold for exports on Friday. The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) in a notification said that the Minimum Export Price condition on onions has been removed with immediate effect.
The retail price of onions is commanding ₹65 a kg and above. The vegetable cooperatives at the command of the government are selling subsidised onions in Delhi and other parts of the country.
The government had previously set a minimum export price of $550 per tonne for onion exports. The measure was to restrict export of onions.
The BJP had faced the wrath of the onion farmers in the Lok Sabha elections this year. The BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was able to win just 17 Lok Sabha seats.
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The Opposition bloc, the Indian National Developmental Alliance (INDIA), consisting of the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party (Sharadchandra) and the Shiv Shena (Uddhav Thackeray) had won 31 Lok Sabha seats.
The Maharashtra-based political observers had blamed among others the curbs on exports of onions for the BJP-led NDA losing maximum number of seats in the state.
“The removal of the Minimum Export Price will enable Indian farmers to take advantage of global market conditions,” said the government in a statement on Friday. It argued that the move will also help farmers in availing export opportunities and potentially stabilizing domestic prices.
With extended rainy season, the onion availability in retail markets is facing stress. The prices are even quoting upwards of ₹65 a kg, and even ₹75 a kg at some places.
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