Thakurnagar (West Bengal): Attacking the Congress’ loan waiver policy as a big farce, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday while referring referring to the Union Budget for 2019-20, said “a historic step has been taken for the welfare of farmers, labourers and youths in the country.”
“For the first time in the country, massive initiatives were announced for the welfare of farmers and labourers in the interim budget presented in Lok Sabha on Friday.
“The schemes announced yesterday will directly benefit more than 12 crore farmer families and 30-40 crore labourers and more than three crore families under the middle income group,” the prime minister said a day after Piyush Goyal presented the Interim Budget.
He noted that Rs 75,000 crore has been allotted under the ‘Pradhan Mantri Kisan Sammaan Nidhi Yojana’ scheme for the welfare of farmers under which a sum of Rs 6,000 would directly transferred into the bank accounts of small of marginal farmers in three equal installments of Rs 2,000 each.
Addressing a packed ground here in North 24 Parganas district., Modi came down heavily on the agricultural policies in the Congress-ruled states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka and claimed that the farmers were being deprived after the pre-poll promises of farm loan waivers.
“You might have seen that in some states votes were sought from the farmers with the promise of waiving farm loans. But they (the new Congress government) are waiving loans of peasants who have never taken any loan.
“They had promised to waive loans of up to Rs 2.5 lakhs. But only loans worth Rs 13 were waived. This is the story of Madhya Pradesh,” Modi said in Thakurnagar, 67 kilometre from Kolkata, and close to the Bangladesh border.
The Prime Minister said in Rajasthan, the Congress has already washed its hands off its own promises. “They did not know earlier that the loan waivers would cost the exchequer such astronomical amounts of money.”
Turning to Karnataka, which has a coalition government of Janata Dal (Secular) and the Congress with JD-S’s HD Kumaraswamy as the Chief Minister, Modi said farmers unable to repay their loans are being hunted down by the police.
“Such are the agricultural and peasant policies of Congress. These policies are being supported by the Chief Minister of Bengal,” he said, taking a broad swipe at Mamata Banerjee.
Attacking the “politics of loan waivers”, Modi said peasants have not benefited from it.
“In our country, there have been repeated shameless attempts to hoodwink peasants through the politics of loan waivers. Parties with vested interests have time and again taken the advantage of peasants’ simplicity.
“Every 10-12 years, with elections around the corner, these selfish parties would declare one-time waiver of loans, which did not benefit the peasants.
“Only a handful of farmers were benefited by this practice and most of the small farmers were kept waiting. Even the peasants who did benefit from it, again got into debt trap after a few years,” he added.
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi on this occasion urged West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress to support the Citizenship Amendment Bill in Parliament to give the refugees living in India the right to citizenship.
Modi said India is the only place that can provide shelter to thousands of Hindus, Sikhs and refugees of other communities, who came from neighbouring countries to save themselves from communal violence.
“After the country was divided during independence, thousands of people including the Hindus, Sikhs, Christians and Parsis had to take shelter in India due to communal violence.
“These refugees should get the right to citizenship. India is the only place that can provide them shelter,” Modi said.
“That’s why our government has come up with Citizenship Amendment Bill. I urge the Trinamool Congress leaders to support the Bill and help the refugee brothers and sisters to get their rights,” he said.
The Lok Sabha has already cleared the Bill, which is now pending in the Rajya Sabha.
Taking a swipe at Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee, Modi said the massive gathering at his rally shows why Banerjee and her party were resorting to violence to stop the Bharatiya Janata Party here.
“After seeing the crowds and the enthusiastic scenes, I understand why didi (elder sister — as Banerjee is affectionately called) is resorting to violence.
“This is your love, which has scared those who are doing drama of saving democracy and are bent on killing innocent people,” he said.