UP believed PM’s promise on loan waiver: BJP leaders
NEW DELHI: Rahul Gandhi may have stolen a march on his rivals by promising a farm loan waiver in Uttar Pradesh but the state's farmers chose to believe Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "personal commitment" to the measure and voted in large numbers for the party's "game-changing announcement", BJP leaders said.
The party's top brass in Delhi hailed the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government's decision on Tuesday to waive loans of more than Rs 36,000 crore of farmers in the state. Senior leaders in Delhi and Lucknow involved in the exercise of introducing the loan waiver promise in BJP's manifesto told ET how the party smartly calibrated its strategy after it realised that the issue had traction on the ground given agrarian distress in UP.
Many farmers also wrote to the BJP seeking a loan waiver as their top demand. "The biggest factor was Modi's promise in his first rally in Meerut on February 4, that he will ensure the first Cabinet meeting of a BJP government waives farmers' loans. For a moment, people may disbelieve the BJP but not Modi, whose word carries credibility," a BJP leader told ET, speaking on condition of anonymity.
BJP made the promise in its manifesto released on January 28 for the UP assembly election. "I will monitor from Delhi to get this done, I assure you," the PM said a week later. Another BJP functionary said the party was alive to the fact that though Congress had no buzz in UP during Rahul Gandhi's Deoria-Delhi Yatra in September last year, his loan waiver promise then did have traction with Congress collecting over 75 lakh 'maangpatras' from farmers.
"Our 'UP ki Mann Ki Baat' exercise to crowdsource our manifesto, which we started in November, got responses from nearly 34 lakh people. Many of them were farmers demanding a loan waiver," a BJP leader said.
The leader said before this, BJP thought PM Crop Insurance Scheme was a better counter to the loan waiver promise of the Congress. "But our ground assessment and surveys also showed farmers were distressed and the condition in Bundelkhand and Poorvanchal was worse than even Vidarbha. There was just 1% agricultural growth compared to double-digit growth in other states. UP had the most fertile land but natural calamities had destroyed farmers," he said.
By delivering on the promise within 15 days, Adityanath has honoured the PM's word.
The party's top brass in Delhi hailed the Yogi Adityanath-led Uttar Pradesh government's decision on Tuesday to waive loans of more than Rs 36,000 crore of farmers in the state. Senior leaders in Delhi and Lucknow involved in the exercise of introducing the loan waiver promise in BJP's manifesto told ET how the party smartly calibrated its strategy after it realised that the issue had traction on the ground given agrarian distress in UP.
Many farmers also wrote to the BJP seeking a loan waiver as their top demand. "The biggest factor was Modi's promise in his first rally in Meerut on February 4, that he will ensure the first Cabinet meeting of a BJP government waives farmers' loans. For a moment, people may disbelieve the BJP but not Modi, whose word carries credibility," a BJP leader told ET, speaking on condition of anonymity.
BJP made the promise in its manifesto released on January 28 for the UP assembly election. "I will monitor from Delhi to get this done, I assure you," the PM said a week later. Another BJP functionary said the party was alive to the fact that though Congress had no buzz in UP during Rahul Gandhi's Deoria-Delhi Yatra in September last year, his loan waiver promise then did have traction with Congress collecting over 75 lakh 'maangpatras' from farmers.
"Our 'UP ki Mann Ki Baat' exercise to crowdsource our manifesto, which we started in November, got responses from nearly 34 lakh people. Many of them were farmers demanding a loan waiver," a BJP leader said.
The leader said before this, BJP thought PM Crop Insurance Scheme was a better counter to the loan waiver promise of the Congress. "But our ground assessment and surveys also showed farmers were distressed and the condition in Bundelkhand and Poorvanchal was worse than even Vidarbha. There was just 1% agricultural growth compared to double-digit growth in other states. UP had the most fertile land but natural calamities had destroyed farmers," he said.
By delivering on the promise within 15 days, Adityanath has honoured the PM's word.
