Samikhsya Bureau
Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday took on both Narendra Modi government at the Centre and Naveen Patnaik government in Odisha for ignoring the plight of farmers while addressing a public meeting in Bargarh district of the state.
Describing Bargarh as the ‘rice bowl’ of Odisha, Gandhi said that the district had witnessed large scale farmers’ suicide due to lack of support from the state government relating to loans and procurement of the agricultural produces. Bargarh known for its agriculture falls under the command area of Hirakud Dam.
Gandhi said that the ‘Chhattisgarh model’ would be replicated if his party was voted to power in the state. After coming to power, the Congress government in Chhattisgarh has waived off loans of farmers and has increased the minimum support price for paddy to Rs.2,500 per quintal.
He accused both Modi and Patnaik for making false promises to people. He attacked chief minister Naveen Patnaik for his failures in setting up a chain of cold storage as promised by him. On Modi, Gandhi said the Prime Minister only talked about farmers but instead of weaving their loans, he wrote off loans worth Rs.3,50,000 of India’s top industrialists.
On the issue of corruption, he drew a parallel between Modi and Patnaik saying that while Modi had helped the corrupt people like Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Anil Ambani and Mehul Chowski to get away with with thousands of crores of rupees, Patnaik was silent about Rs.5,000 crore chit fund scam and Rs.50,000 crore mining scam. He charged Patnaik of running a bureaucracy driven government whose remote was controlled by Modi.
Gandhi also slammed both Modi and Patnaik for doing nothing to create jobs. He called Odisha under the BJD government as a “center of unemployment” and asked Modi about the two crore jobs each year and Rs.15 lakh in each Indian’s account as promised by the Prime Minister.
