Bengaluru, Mar 7: Hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the Congress-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition government of Karnataka an “enemy of farmers” on Wednesday, chief minister H D Kumaraswamy asked him to stop playing politics over farmers.
Addressing the farming community after presentation of the Krishi Pandit awards to progressive farmers at the Banquet Hall of the State Secretariat here, Mr. Kumaraswamy said Mr. Modi spoke volumes about farmers but his decisions were not implementable.
The Modi government has released only Rs. 415 crore against the State’s demand for Rs. 2,000 crore for tackling drought, he said. “Mr. Modi not only cut funds under MNREGA, but also denied promised funds under the scheme to the State,” the Chief Minister said.
On Mr. Modi’s allegations that the State government was doing injustice to farmers by not cooperating in the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme, Mr. Kumaraswamy pointed out that the State had waived crop loans amounting to Rs. 11,000 crore this year and Rs. 13,000 crore had been set aside for 2019-20.
But the Union government has done no more than deposit Rs. 2,000 in the bank accounts of farmers, he said. Taking a dig at Mr. Modi, he said: “Politics should not come in the way of helping farmers to better their lives.”
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