In a remarkable reversal of the party’s stance, the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh has readily adopted Aadhaar as part of its farm loan waiver plan, making linkage compulsory for farmers who wish to benefit from the waiver, reports The Economic Times.

The Congress had previously been a staunch opponent of the NDA’s Aadhar legislation, questioning its linkage with a number of government schemes.

A recent order issued by the state government states, “The amount will be deposited through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) from the state exchequer into the farmer’s loan account. Hence, to avail the scheme’s benefit, it is mandatory for the farmer to get his bank account seeded (linked) with Aadhaar.”

The loan waiver was one of the salient promises the Congress party had made part of its manifesto prior to the assembly elections in the state. It is now putting that promise into action, with up to 5.4 million farmers possibly being eligible to avail of the waiver.

A senior official of the state government stated that the reasoning behind the directive was that almost all farmers in the state already had an Aadhaar card as they needed to the unique identification to be covered under schemes of the previous BJP government.

“We will publish two lists in every gram panchayat from January 15 on – one will be a green list of farmers having Aadhaar linked accounts and a white list of farmers not having the same,” he added.

The farmers whose names are included in the white list would need to visit their bank branch to link their Aadhaa number between 15 January and 5 February, with the final date for submitting forms to the gram panchayat being 5 February.