Congress president Sonia Gandhi has asked Congress Ministers in Hemant Soren Government to fulfill the poll promises made by party during Assembly election. Sonia Gandhi gave the directive to Congress Ministers during their visit to 10 Janpath the official residence of Congress chief. Four Ministers including finance minister Rameshwar Oraon, parliamentary affairs minister Alamgir Alam, Agriculture minister Badal and health minister Banna Gupta met the Congress chief along with State Congress in-charge RPN Singh.
Minister Alam said, “The Congress chief asked us to fulfill the promises made in the manifesto. Simultaneously, the directions were issued to work in organization as well.” Apart from this
The Minister said that the party chief asked the leaders to go to all the districts for having public interaction.
Sources said that the Congress chief asked the ministers to full fill the election manifesto such as waving of farmers’ loan as announced by Chhattisgarh Government and increase the minimum support price of paddy.
Gandhi’s directive to Congress quota Ministers assumes importance as senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi while addressing a rally at Simdega last year during Assembly election promised to waive farmers’ loan if the grand old party is voted to power in the State.
Rahul had also said that if the Grand Alliance government, of which Congress is part is voted to power, they will waive farmers’ loan. The Congress party manifesto too talked about waiving of farmers loan.
The Congress manifesto mention that all crop loans up to Rs 2, 00,000 will be waived immediately if the party returns to power in the state.
Rahul had said that the Congress party is real well-wisher of farmers and not handful of industrialists like the BJP governments. The Congress ruled governments at Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Rajasthan as per the poll promises had waived farmers’ loan.
Sources said that apart from waving farmers loan, the Congress chief also asked about increasing the minimum support price of paddy.
Also Rahul Gandhi during election campaign had said that farmers would receive a minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 2,500 for every quintal of paddy, if the Cong-JMM-RJD coalition wins majority.
The Congress chief directive on increasing the MSP and waving farmers’ loan gain importance as both the finance and agriculture ministry is with Congress.
Meanwhile, health minister Banna Gupta said that Congress chief asked about the performance of various departments. Highlighting, the work of his department, Gupta said, “We informed Congress chief that the government had introduced health scheme under which people having annual income upto Rs 8 lakh will be entitle for getting medical insurance upto RS 5 lakh.”