Kamal Nath led Congress government’s promise in Madhya Pradesh, to waive-off farms loans under Jai Kisan Rin Mukti Yojana has turned out to be a debacle. The false promises of loan-waivers have created a stir amongst the poor farmers in the state. Rahul Gandhi in December 2018 had boasted that the Congress government has succeeded in waiving loans of all farmers.
It’s done!
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh have waived farm loans.
We asked for 10 days.
We did it in 2.
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) December 19, 2018
Amidst what can be seen as a massive loan-waiver scam brewing in the state, the farmers have now, threatened to commit ‘mass suicide’ after their names appeared on the state government’s loan waiver list even though they do not have any dues or have loans far smaller than the ones that are listed.
The distressed farmers of Hilgan village assembled at the panchayat office to protest against the faulty list on Saturday “We will commit mass suicide if this issue is not resolved at the earliest,” they said.
What is shocking is that there are several like the farmer named Ramkumar Singh Lodhi who found his father’s name also in this list who had died a few years ago. According to TOI, the list mentioned a loan of Rs 70,481 against Lodhi and Rs 9,547 against his father’s name. In reality, the farmer had taken a loan of Rs 17,000 only for sowing gram crop earlier this year and there was no loan taken on his father’s name.
Another farmer, Brajendra Singh, said, “Almost 100 farmers of the village are affected and those who have never taken a loan have been made defaulters out of the blue.”
However, according to the state government, it has already ordered a probe into complaints of fake loans.
The Congress party with their misadventures and the politics of farm loan waivers seems to be in the middle of a severe crisis as, recently, yet another farmer in the state of Madhya Pradesh was reportedly deceived by the Kamal Nath led Congress government after just Rs.13 was set to be waived-off against a loan of Rs.24,000.
Kamal Nath’ government’s inadequacy to keep up the big promises of loan-waivers made at the time of wooing people to garner votes before the State election has already taken three lives of farmers in Madhya Pradesh. Along with these deaths, many farmers across the state who had taken the loan from banks before 31 st March 2018 and that of more than Rs 1 lakh, have reportedly got loan waiver benefit of mere Rs 25-30.
The Congress government in the Madhya Pradesh seems to have already lost their control as the state has been rocked with severe protests by the farmers along with severe law and order issues in the state. Within weeks of Congress coming to power in the state, there has been a series of murders of BJP and RSS workers in the state raising concerns about the issue of law and order in the state.
The government soon after assuming power in Madhya Pradesh had set in new conditions to waive-off farms loans contrary to its earlier promise of unconditional loan waiver. In addition to this, the Congress governments in both Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are facing severe outrage from the farmers within weeks of their government formation, as both governments in the respective states had created a crisis by mismanaging the supply of urea.
Similar dubious cases of non-existent farm loans being waived off have been reported in Congress led Rajasthan as well. Scores of names have appeared in the list of beneficiaries for the farm loan waiver scheme who had no loans against their names.
It so seems that the Congress in its haste to grasp a hold on few states had made several commitments without working out on the strategies. Had they concentrated on the here-and-now and thought of the aftermath earlier, it might have been possible for the Congress-led government to survive this experience.
