In an interview to ANI aired on January 01, 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi answered many tough questions and gave clear insight on his stand on various pressing issues that dominate the current affairs in the country. The hour and a half long interview has set in motion BJP’s general election campaign, with generous amounts of clarity provided by the PM on questions relating to Surgical Strikes, Ram Mandir Ordinance, Sabarimala Temple issue and many others.
#WATCH PM Narendra Modi's interview to ANI's editor Smita Prakash https://t.co/k2qHD2ULhN
— ANI (@ANI) January 1, 2019
One of these questions was on Modi’s “lollipop” comment on Rahul Gandhi and Congress’ loan waiver promises to various states like Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, to which, PM Modi answered, “To say a lie and mislead people that is what I called lollipop. Like saying that we have waived all farmers’ farm loans. The truth is that they have not done it… You can look at their own circulars. So this type of lies or misleading claims is of no use.” He mentioned that government of India has recovered Rs 3 lakh crores from willful defaulters and stressed that comparing amounts owed by defaulters to banks with that of farm loan pressures on farmers to instigate them, “(such things) should not be spoken and a responsible political party should never do it.”
In his speech in Ghazipur, PM Modi had pointed out how loan waiver promises in 2009 won the Congress the election but farmers were forgotten after the election. He mentioned that the total debt of farmers in India was around 6 lakh crore rupees but only 60,000 crore rupees were promised. He called these promises lollipops given to the people.
In the interview, he asserted that if loan waivers benefit farmers, then it should definitely be done, but he further explained how loan waivers have not been able to solve the problem of India’s farmers and the vicious cycle of “elections and loan waivers” have not helped farmers. PM Modi pointed that majority of farmers take loans not from banks but from money lenders, hence they are not covered in governments’ loan waiver promises. He stressed on a better solution that is to empower farmers in different ways such as to provide them assistance with the procurement of seeds and access to water through various schemes formulated by the government. Indeed, loan waiver promises are temporary measures with short-lived effects to aid the ailing farmer community and further stress the already constrained fiscal resources of states. Economists have also reverberated in unison the unfeasibility of farm loan waivers and suggest increasing expenditure in agricultural sectors.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had earlier claimed that new Congress governments have waived loans of all farmers and passed the baton to the Modi government at the centre to waive all farm loans in the country. However, PM Modi has made it clear that the government is not contemplating in that direction. In other words, Rahul Gandhi’s pre-election bait has been rejected for the greater good of the economy.
Loan waiver promises by Congress in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan formed the major reason why they came to power in these states in 2018. However, their promises have been hollow, where various terms and conditions post elections have raised questions about their intent to help farmers.
In Karnataka, in the last 5 months, only 800 farmers have been granted loan waivers while lakhs of petitions await the response. Farmers are being served notices by banks to pay their dues and denied further credit while they wait for the Congress-JDS government to materialize on its promises. In this way, Congress has stagnated farmers’ ecosystem, plunging them into a limbo, by delaying their activities in the sowing seasons, while they are being treated as defaulters and issued arrest warrants. The ultimate impact of this gross inefficiency is that farmer suicides are on the rise in Karnataka with over 250 suicides only since the Congress-JDS alliance formed government seven months ago. Moreover, the state had been ruled by the Congress itself before the alliance took over.
In Madhya Pradesh, the Kamal Nath government has also put many riders on their loan waiver scheme depriving about 90,000 farmers of availing the waiver. The loan waiver is restricted to only short-term loans. In Rajasthan, Gehlot government has announced loan waivers worth around 18,000 crore rupees to farmers.
The Congress had made loan waivers a priority in their manifestos before going to elections in these states but they seem to have failed the farmers pathetically after coming to power. This tendency also discourages farmers from paying off their loans in the anticipation that a loan waiver might save them, only to push them further in debt. For Rahul Gandhi, it has been easy to say those farm loan waivers are all done, but in reality, they are far from easing the pressure on farmers any time soon. Hence, PM Modi has made it a point to expose this tendency of the Congress Party with regard to its loan waiver promises before the 2019 Lok Sabha Elections.
