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Thursday, Mar 13, 2008
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BJP plans kisan rallies

Special Correspondent

To counter Congress and focus on waiver’s “little impact”

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party has planned a number of farmers’ rallies across the country over the next few months to counter any political advantage the Congress may get as a result of the budget announcement on debt relief.

The first big rally will take place in Jind, Haryana, on March 16, which the party has also planned as a “show of strength.” The party’s ‘prabhari’ in-charge of the State’s political affairs Vijay Goel said the BJP would like to project itself as having the strength to go it alone in the State in the next election and emerge victorious.

“We will point out that on an average most places in the State get electricity for just two hours a day and as a result water supply is also affected.” The party would focus on the “little impact” that the debt relief proposal would have on the majority of farmers who have borrowed from private moneylenders.

Report on agri-crisis

At the party’s last national executive, a committee had been set up under M. Venkaiah Naidu to come up with a report on the agri-crisis and suggest an alternative policy. “This will be a document on agri-policy and land-use. I hope the committee will finish its work in the next two months. The problem of land-use will also touch on the SEZ [Special Economic Zone] issue. The BJP is not against SEZs, but has demanded that fertile and irrigated land should not be used for SEZs as the country has to be mindful of future production of cereals and other food items. We want a policy that would make farmers, whose land is taken, stakeholders in the SEZs or other projects that would come up,” Mr. Naidu said.

The alternative agri-policy document would become part of the party’s manifesto for the next Lok Sabha elections, Mr. Naidu said. “We want to present a credible alternative agriculture policy that would give a good deal to farmers and ensure agriculture growth.”

The party is also keen to puncture the euphoria the Congress was trying to create over the loan waiver announcement and counter the propaganda that the National Democratic Alliance government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee was anti-farmer.

The BJP’s plans are to organise farmers’ rallies and take them to the nearest bank branches demanding loan waiver. If they don’t get it, the Congress can be blamed, if they do, the BJP can claim the credit for taking them there.

“Yes, the interest on loans to farmers during the NDA regime was 18 per cent, but we brought it down to 9 per cent and had announced further reduction when elections took place,” Mr. Naidu said. “We want to counter what the Prime Minister and Congress president Sonia Gandhi have been saying about low minimum support prices and high interest charges during the NDA government tenure.”

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