New Delhi, April 21 (SocialNews.XYZ) In West Bengal, potato growers are facing acute problems with a produce of aplenty together with the curb on selling it in other states, leading to the issue turning into a political diatribe with the Assembly election scheduled for April 23 and 29.
The state's principal Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has highlighted farmer suicides linked to debt, allegedly after growers failed to recover costs from potato sales.
West Bengal BJP President Samik Bhattacharya has claimed that at least five farmers have ended their lives in the state since February facing such hardships.
He accused the Trinamool Congress-led West Bengal government of ignoring potato growers facing such crisis.
He alleged that while the Mamata Banerjee-led government has stopped shipping potatoes to other states, it is not even providing any financial relief to the beleaguered farmers.
Earlier reports said that the state government had decided to buy potatoes from farmers for Rs 9.50 per kilogram.
About 30 per cent of cold storage space was reserved for storing potatoes.
The scheme was aimed at the 12 main potato-producing districts of the state.
Among the major potato-growing districts in West Bengal are Hooghly, Purba Bardhaman, Paschim Bardhaman, Paschim Medinipur, and Bankura.
Other significant areas come in Howrah, Jhargram, Birbhum, Murshidabad, and Nadia.
The BJP has alleged that the state government is asking cold storage owners to buy potatoes from farmers at higher rates than that in markets.
They claimed that that the state administration was trying to shift its responsibility to cold storage owners.
West Bengal is India's second‑largest potato producer after Uttar Pradesh, and contributes nearly 20-25 per cent of the country's total output.
Projections suggest the state may now be touching 14-15 million tonnes in 2025-2026, reflecting both expanded acreage and improved yields.
This dominance makes West Bengal's potato economy highly sensitive to policy shifts such as export restrictions, because the state traditionally supplies large volumes to neighbouring markets like Odisha and Jharkhand.
When internal demand fails to absorb the surplus, the impact on farm‑gate prices is immediate and severe.
The Trinamool Congress government has been on the defensive, trying to balance local price control with farmers' export opportunities to other states.
In the past, it has periodically banned or restricted potato exports to other states when retail prices spiked inside West Bengal, which traders and farmers now say has disrupted established supply chains.
Meanwhile, Trinamool Congress General Secretary and Lok Sabha MP, Abhishek Banerjee, has made a series of promises, including the state government's pledge of an agriculture budget of Rs 30,000 crore every year.
For the Trinamool Congress, the risk is not just agricultural but electoral where the potato belt is widely seen as a key pillar of its rural vote base.
With state election ahead, the ruling party could face reaction in a belt that packs around 15 lakh directly employed potato farmers and about 40 lakh voters.
The BJP is framing the crisis as part of a broader "agrarian crisis" under the Trinamool government, linking it also to difficulties in onion, paddy and jute cultivation.
Rural Bengal holds considerable sway in determining poll outcomes.
The BJP has been making repeated forays in the villages and semi-urban areas in the past decade and will try to make potato growers' woe an issue to make its impact in polling.
Source: IANS
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