Nilgiris Tea Growers Remember Vajpayee with Affection

Ooty: As the BJP held events across the country on Thursday to mark the conclusion of the birth centenary celebrations of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the hill farmers here, especially those from the small tea growers sector, remembered Vajpayee’s kind gesture as Prime Minister while he met the farmers and other delegation from the Nilgiris in New Delhi in the year 2000, which paved the way for the Centre to allot special funds to be distributed as tea subsidy to tide over the tea procurement price crisis.It may be recalled that the summer of 2000 in the Nilgiris turned out to be highly volatile and tension mounted in the hills which even saw the annual flower show here being cancelled as the tea farmers agitation was in full swing which even extended up to the last week of July and often saw law and order issues cropping up. In this backdrop, Vajpayee, the then Prime Minister, allotted time to meet the farmers’ delegation from the Nilgiris to listen to them personally, as tea affairs come under the Union commerce ministry. N. Bheeman, a small tea grower hailing from Thuneri village here, who recalled the meeting with Prime Minister Vajpayee then, said the meeting was made possible only by the efforts taken by Master Mathan, the MP from the Nilgiris then, who was also a senior BJP leader in the state. “We presented him with a traditional seelai (shawl) of the Badagas and also a turban, which he exulted over and attended the meeting with the turban adorning his head. Vajyapee gave a patient hearing to the farmers’ delegation from the Nilgiris and enquired why the farmers from the Nilgiris depended more on tea cultivation, while avenues are there for taking up vegetable cultivation. “When the farmers explained to him that vegetable cultivation cannot to be taken on a large-scale due to man-animal conflict and that tea cultivation has been widely practised by the farmers in the Nilgiris for more than a century and that the need of the hour was to find solutions to the tea price crisis and to look for avenues to fix support price for green tea leaf, Vajpayee immediately took steps to allot special funds to distribute tea subsidy to the tea growers through the Tea Board to tide over the crisis. “Later on, this formula was followed by the Tamil Nadu government whenever the tea price crisis cropped up. The meeting with Vajpayee showcased how he used to be a down-to-earth personality and how he made others comfortable to clearly express their views to him. That showed his affection and care for his fellow countrymen,” Bheeman added.



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