Gujarat polls: Congress promises UP like loan waiver for farmers

AHMEDABAD: The election climate is heating up in the state with both the big parties now focussing on the farmers. While state Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki has announced that Congress will waive off the loans of the farmers once in power, BJP President Jitu Vaghani has blamed Congress for the plight of the farmers.

The issue assumes significance as the Patidar unrest that had rocked the state earlier is intrinsically linked with the resentment of the farmers of the state particularly in Saurashtra region as the Patidars are into farming in a big way there.

The attempts to woo the farmers therefore would touch the community in a big way. Jitu Vaghani has in a recent programme to felicitate the farmers had vacated his own chair to honour an award winning farmer and made him sit on it. Further he took pot shots at Congress and blamed the party for the plight of the farmers in the state before 1995.


Alleging that there were corruption even in fodder and drinking water for the cattle in Congress regime, Vaghani cited the development of Banaskantha district in north Gujarat as a major milk and potato producing district to bolster the case for the party. Congress president Solanki on the other hand sought a waiver of farm loans for the farmers in the state on the lines of Uttar Pradesh and said that Congress will do so once voted to power.