AURANGABAD, NOV 27: In a significant development, the BJP, on Friday put up a major show of strength in Latur, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh's home-town, holding a farmers' rally to demand better price for cotton and regular supply of electricity in rural areas.The rally, led by former deputy chief minister and a close friend of Deshmukh, Gopinath Munde, was probably the biggest of its kind in the last two decades, reports indicate.Currently, the state Cotton Monopoly Purchase Federation has categorised cotton into five different grades and pays the cotton-growers in three instalments. However, the BJP has demanded that that the grades be reduced to two and the Federation make a one-time full-payment.As for power-supply, Munde, who earlier held the energy portfolio, said while the official load-shedding was said to be lasting for eight hours, in reality, the supply was being cut for almost half the day.The BJP has also demanded a hike in the milk procurement prices. Recently, the State Government had increased the selling-price of milk by Rs two per litre but made no changes in the milk-producers' earnings.
