Highlighting the plight of farmers in his new parliamentary constituency Wayanad in Kerala and across the country, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday attacked the Modi Government over the “suffering” of farmers and providing relief to businessmen rather than the debt-ridden farmers.
He said, 18 farmers have committed suicide in Kerala and one ended his life a day ago in his constituency of Wayanad. Speaking during the zero hour, Rahul asked Central Government to grant moratorium imposed by Kerala on banks from realising their loans from the debt-ridden farmers.
Farmers have been facing threats of immediate eviction from their properties, he said, as banks from which they had taken loans have begun recover process.
Rahul said while the Modi-Government has provided no relief to the farmers, businessmen have been given concessions of Rs 4.3 lakh crores and loan waivers running into Rs 5.5 lakh crore .
He wondered whether the Government considered farmers “inferior” to the businessmen.
Congress leader said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had made a lot of promises to farmers and the Government should fulfill them.
In his intervention, Union Minister Rajnath Singh countered Rahul’s charge in Lok Sabha as he blamed the long rule of the Congress for the plight of farmers and asserted that no Prime Minister has done as much for peasants as by Modi.
Rajnath claimed the Government’s move to give Rs 6,000 to farmers will lead to a rise in their income by 20-25 per cent and maintained that more farmers committed suicide before the BJP-led dispensation came to power.
“It is not that the condition of farmers deteriorated in the last one, two or four years. Those who ruled the country for a long time are responsible for their state. The amount of increase in MSP (minimum support price) that our Prime Minister has effected has not been done by anybody in independent India’s history,” he claimed.
Incidentally, former agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh had asked during question hour this week whether loan wavers had impacted lowering of suicides among farmers in the country. He had also asked for total number of farmers suicide in the country to which Government said exact figures were not available. Government said loan waiver during the UPA Government did not lower the suicide numbers and that from 2014 to 2015 also numbers of suicide had increased from 5,650 to 8,007.
Soon after Rahul’s speech, Congress MPs wanted to raise the Karnataka developments relating to the resignations of MLAs from the State ruling coalition of the Congress-JDS for the fourth consecutive day in the lower house. As Speaker Om Birla did not permit, Congress MPs staged a walk out from the House.