Loan waiver promise in UP troubles Fadnavis government in Maharashtra

MUMBAI: A poll promise made for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections is coming back to haunt the BJP in Maharashtra. While the party had promised a loan waiver for farmers in UP, the Opposition in Maharashtra -- Congress, NCP, ally Shiv Sena and even some of its own MLAs -- are now demanding a similar waiver for farmers in the state.

Congress and NCP MLAs questioned the government as to why it is reluctant to give a loan waiver when it is promising the same to farmers in UP. Congress leaders such as Radha Krishna Vikhe Patil and Ajit Pawar of NCP have slammed the government, saying that farmers here are far worse off than their counterparts in UP.

But on Thursday, even BJP’s ally Shiv Sena demanded that the government give a loan waiver to farmers here, and interestingly, many BJP MLAs also backed the demand, leading to considerable embarrassment in the BJP ranks.

FM Sudhir Mungantiwar, however, maintained that the state isn’t against loan waiver to farmers, but wants to create a ‘conducive atmosphere first’.

“The Chief Minister has already said that we are not opposed to giving loan waiver to farmers. However, we need to create a proper infrastructure on the ground to ensure that the loan waiver actually benefits them,” said Mungantiwar. He explained that the loan waivers often don’t help farmers, but actually benefit only banks and cooperative banks, and after the loans are written off, the farmer again falls back in debt.

Mungantiwar has echoed what Maharashtra chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had been saying in the past. Fadnavis had stressed said that unless the state tries to find out the reasons why farmers take debt, it will never be able to tackle the problem.

The Maharashtra government’s reluctance to offer loan waivers also stems from its precarious finances. Senior government officials said that a waiver of farm loan would mean that the state would have to take over the debt, which would mean aggravating the state’s fiscal resources. Maharashtra has a debt burden of more than Rs 3 lakh crore and government officials said that a waiver of farm loan would set the state back by almost 10 to 15 years.

Mungantiwar said that the Opposition charge of BJP promising a loan waiver in UP but not in Maharashtra isn’t justified. “They are talking of UP, but in Karnataka their own (Congress) Chief Minister is not in favour of a loan waiver.”