After having engaged in war of words with Congress party for months on farm loan waiver, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Madhya Pradesh has admitted in State Assembly that farm loans of over 26 lakh farmers were waived off in the State.
In a written reply submitted to the House in response to a query from Congress member Jaivardhan Singh on Monday, the Agriculture minister Kamal Patel offered details of the farm loan waiver scheme.
According to the reply, farm loans of 26,95,381 farmers were waived off and a total amount of over Rs 11,000 cr was sanctioned under the scheme of farm loan waiver that ran in two phases.
The first phase of loan waiver continued ahead of Dec 17, 2019 and after this date, the second phase of the scheme was implemented, according to the written reply submitted by Patel in the Assembly.
The State Government in the reply admitted that farm loans from few hundreds rupees to to little over Rs 1lakh were waived off under the Jai Kisan loan waiver scheme. To add, the scheme was announced by Kamal Nath Government after coming to power.
All the districts of the State saw farm loans being waived off (in Kamal Nath Government) and even in tehsils –Guna, Bamori, Raghogarh, Chachoda, Madhusudangarh, Kumbhraj and Aaron, farm loans upto Rs 1 lakh were waived off for 17,403 farmers, the reply said. The detailed review of farm loan waiver is being considered by the State Government and a decision will be taken after due diligence, Patel replied to another question from MLA Engg Pradip Lariya on decision to waive off farm loans of remaining farmers by the BJP Government.
Notably, the BJP had been cursing the Congress party for months that it betrayed the farmers and farm loan waiver was mere an eyewash. The Congress party suddenly turned aggressive after the reply was reported in the media on Tuesday.
“Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Congress deserter Jyotiraditya Scindia have been lying persistently on farm loan waiver,” said MPCC chief Kamal Nath on Tuesday saying his government had waived off Rs 11600 cr for 26.95 lakh farmers in the state in two phases and this was admitted by the Shivraj Government in Assembly on Monday.
Nath demanded an immediate apology from CM Chouhan and Scindia on this.
He also demanded that Chouhan Government should immediately start a process to waive off farm loans of remaining farmers. The BJP including CM Chouhan was yet to react.