Stigma of killing farmers is on Chouhan: Scindia

Scindia is on three-day satyagraha in the memory of deceased Mandsaur farmers and it entered the second day on Thursday.

Indore, June 15: Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia who is on a 72 -hour satyagrah since Wednesday said that if BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra can announce farm loan waivers why the party-ruled Madhya Pradesh cannot do this.

Taking swipe at Chouhan, who recently called off his indefinite fast, Scindia said, "It is one of the worst days. Farmers were killed by the security forces. But what does this government do? It undergoes a fast. If the government indulges in this act, then what will people do? What kind of expectations will they have of this government?" He said the stigma of the death of six farmers due to police firing lies at Chouhan's doorstep.

Scindia, also criticised the state's BJP government for not taking any action against those who fired at the farmers in Mandsaur last week, killing five of them.

Following protests by cultivators in Maharashtra, the Devendra Fadnavis-led government on Sunday announced a loan- waiver for farmers and decided to form a committee to work out the debt-relief criteria.

The Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh had also recently announced a loan-waiver of Rs 36,359 crore for small and marginal farmers in the state.

"When the BJP governments in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra have announced to waive farm loans, why the same party's regime in Madhya Pradesh has been shying away from announcing the same," Scindia told reporters during his ongoing 'satyagraha' at TT Nagar's Dussehra Maidan.

He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself had made several promises to make farming a beneficial venture with slogans like 'Abki Bar Kisano Ki Sarkar".

"The prime minister made a series of promises to make farming a profitable venture during election campaign. Now, the Centre is saying the state governments will have to arrange funds for loan waiver on their own and that the Centre government would not extend any help," he said.

The Centre is not budging despite the fact that nearly 12,000 farmers are committing suicide every year, Scindia, the Congress chief whip in Lok Sabha, claimed.
He also hit out at the Madhya Pradesh government for not taking action those who fired at the farmers in Mandsaur.

"Ten days after the farmer killings in Mandsaur, the state government has not taken any action against the guilty.

The government has failed to inform who ordered the firing on farmers. They can't say anything because the farmers were killed on the orders of the state government," Scindia said.

He said that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is now trying to "mollify" the families of the farmers killed by giving them a compensation of Rs 1 crore, jobs to the kin, among others.

The Congress leader also said that the onion purchase by the state government has also been marred by mismanagement.

PTI