Will waive farm loans in 10 days if elected: Rahul in MP
MANDSAUR: Congress president Rahul Gandhi promised on Wednesday that his party would waive farm loans within 10 days if it won this year’s assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh.
Speaking at a farmers’ rally at Piplya Mandi near Mandsaur — the site of last year’s agitation for loan waivers and higher crop prices in which six farmers were killed in police firing — Gandhi also promised that a Congress government would act against those responsible for the deaths.
The event was organised to mark the first death anniversary of the farmers.
“The day the Congress comes to power in MP, count 10 days, I say with guarantee that farmers’ loan will be waived within 10 days. It won’t take even the eleventh day,” Gandhi said.
“Modi will only waives loans of rich industrialists and refused to waive farmers’ loans when I requested him. But the Congress governments in Karnataka and Punjab… have waived farm loans, showing that the [Congress] party is with the farmers,” he said.
While Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states such as Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan have announced farm loan waivers, the Madhya Pradesh government has not made any such announcement so far.
Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had announced an incentive scheme in which farmers get 10% subsidy on the principal amount while repaying the loan.