News Brief
Madhya Pradesh: Congress Promises Yet Another Freebie Ahead Of Elections, This Time for Farmers
Former CM and Madhya Pradesh state Congress Chief Kamal Nath. (Mujeeb Faruqui/Hindustan Times via GettyImages)
With just under three months remaining until the Assembly election in Madhya Pradesh, the state Congress has made a promise to introduce a new scheme focused on farmers if they are voted into power.
This scheme, named 'Krishak Nyay Yojana' (farmers' justice scheme), aims to provide loan waivers, free electricity, and other benefits to farmers in the state.
The 'Krishak Nyay Yojana' has been outlined by Kamal Nath, the State Congress chief. The scheme includes provisions such as free electricity of up to 5 horsepower for irrigation, benefiting around 37 lakh farmers.
It also aims to waive off pending electricity bills for farmers, ensure 12 hours of uninterrupted power supply, withdraw police cases against farmers who participated in protests during the previous government's regime, and continue the loan waiver scheme for farmers.
Kamal Nath, the former Chief Minister, also accused the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government of mistreating farmers in the state. He claimed that Chouhan made false statements in front of the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, about the doubling of farmers' income in the state.
According to the parliamentary committee report in December 2022, Madhya Pradesh is one of the four states in the country where farmers' income has significantly decreased. The income, which was ₹9,740 per month in 2015-16, has now dropped to ₹8,339 per month.
The Congress also proposed that the farm loan waiver scheme announced in 2018 will be resumed.
Notably, in May, the BJP government launched a farm loan interest waiver scheme, which is expected to benefit over 11 lakh farmers in the state.
However, Nath criticized the BJP government for only providing partial relief to farmers. He also claimed that there are issues of frequent power cuts, interrupted power supply, and the alleged challenges farmers face in terms of inputs and accessing markets for their produce.
Reportedly, the party is striving to garner votes in rural areas through its freebie proposals, where agriculture is the main occupation, as these areas make up approximately 170 out of the 230 Assembly constituencies.
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