Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent claim about the Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan being “dedicated to development” has been challenged by former Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, who has accused the State government of ignoring the interests of farmers and failing on every front of development.
Mr. Modi had praised the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the State while addressing a “parivartan rally” in Allahabad on Monday after the two-day national executive session of the party. Party president Amit Shah also addressed the rally, which was attended by Ms. Raje.
Mr. Gehlot said here on Wednesday that Mr. Modi's Cabinet colleague, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh, had stated that the Rajasthan government had lagged behind in preparations for the Prime Minister's crop insurance scheme. The State government is yet to decide on the crops to be covered in the scheme and finalise the companies to provide the insurance cover.
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As the farmers would shortly start sowing of kharif crops before the onset of monsoon, any delay in the scheme's implementation would deprive them of its benefits in the event of crop failure. Mr. Gehlot said the failure to list the companies for the insurance scheme was an act of “gross negligence”.
The former Chief Minister pointed out that the previous Congress government had treated as supreme the farmers' interests and launched several new programmes for their economic upliftment. “We facilitated the payment of Rs.3,521 crore worth of crop insurance money to over 1.48 crore famers, with the premium of Rs.1,557 crore paid by the State government.”
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Mr. Gehlot said the kharif farming in the desert State was mostly dependent on monsoon and the livelihood of small and marginal farmers depended on rain-fed agriculture. Against this backdrop, the BJP government had completely failed in supplying fertiliser and seeds to farmers on time, he charged, adding that urea had be supplied last year under the watch of the police force.
“Several farmers committed suicide after the State government failed to pay them compensation for loss of crops due to hailstorm. Far from releasing compensation to the next of kin of the deceased farmers, this insensitive government did not even react properly to their untimely death,” he said.