New Delhi:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address farmers’ issues in a rally in central Karnataka’s Davangere on Tuesday organised by the Karnataka unit of the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) to mark the 75th birthday of the state party president and Chief Minister candidate BS Yeddyurappa.
PM Modi is expected to highlight the recent initiatives taken up by the Centre for the well-being of the farmers, and address the distressed of the agricultural sector. With this step, in a poll-bound Karnataka, the party expects to win over the farming community.
The BJP has already cited Congress party for the failure to facilitate the central schemes in the state, like crop insurance as a cause for deaths.
BJP President Amit Shah, on his recent visit to Kalaburagi region, visited the family of a farmer who had committed suicide in that region, along with holding discussions with sugarcane farmers on the budget announcement by the party which draws payment of minimum support price for crops at 1.5 times the cost of production.
Shah ensured that the party will ensure the payment of all the remaining dues to the sugarcane farmers from sugar factories very soon after elections, if it is elected to power, and also reopen the closed factories.
He also assured that the BJP would bring water from the Mahadayi river to the districts in northern Karnataka. “I can promise that the BJP will solve the Mahadayi river dispute. The youth and farmers are fed up with the 3D politics of the Congress —dhokha, dadagiri and dynasty. It is time to replace dynastic politics with development politics,” he said.
“Apart from loan waiver, there are many other problems of farmers that we are addressing. The issue of loan waiver will be looked at when the BJP is in government,” he said while at a press conference, assuring that the party will consider waiving of loans upon farmers from national banks, if it is elected to power.
However, the state Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah, has often accused the BJP of waiving farmers’ loans from the national banks on behalf of a waiver granted by the government a few years ago, along with a waiver of Rs 8000 crore of loans from cooperative banks that has been granted during his tenure.
Meanwhile, the standing CM candidate, BS Yeddyurappa, has promised to bring Rs 1 lakh crore worth of irrigation projects to the state.
While from the side of Congress, party president Rahul Gandhi, while addressing a rally on Monday, accused PM Modi of favouring the ‘super rich’ and questioned why he had not appointed a Lokpal until now to fight corruption. He also questioned PM’s ‘silence’ on issues such as the PNB fraud and Rafale deal.
He said, “In Gujarat, Modiji did not implement Lokayukta. It has been four years since he became Prime Minister… He did not implement Lokpal even in Delhi. Lalit Modi and Vijay Mallya ran away to London… Modiji practise as you preach, do something and show. You are surrounded with corruption, wherever you see there is corruption; do something.”
Gandhi completed his second leg of his three-day tour of the northern parts of the state on Monday, thus addressing meetings and gatherings in Bagalkote, Belagavi, and Dharwar districts.
