The Yogi Adityanath government’s waiver plan, constrained by resource crunch, is a non-starter.
THERE IS LITTLE DOUBT THAT ONE OF THE triggers of the farmers’ agitation across India inMay and June was the decision of waiver of farm loans by the Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government inUttar Pradesh at its veryfirst Cabinetmeeting on April 4. The Chief Minister claimed that his government was fulfilling the promise made by the BJP during the election campaign.
“If Uttar Pradesh can do it, why not our government”, was the refrain that came up, almost immediately, from farming communities in other parts of the country. The refrain gathered momentum in the next one month and culminated in intense agitations inMadhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and relatively lesser shows of resentment by farmers inRajasthan,Haryana andPunjab. Following this, the BJP governments in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra announced waivers. But, even as these developmentswere taking place, the farmers ofUttar Pradesh, the first beneficiaries of the farm loan waiver of 2017, debunked the government’s announcement with varied epithets such as “sleight of hand”, “treachery” and “downright chicanery”.
Responses to the scheme obtained from different parts of the State, including the agriculture-intensive western Uttar Pradesh, almost unanimously reflected this sense of indignation.
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