Farmers never had it so good at least in terms of competitive promises, schemes and funds that major political parties have made in the on-going assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Telangana and Mizoram. ‘Vision document’ or ‘Drishti Patra’, essentially election manifestos of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Congress, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), have all promised to set aside a lion’s share of funds, schemes and projects for farmers. Subsidies on farm inputs, bonus payments on crops, loan waivers to pension are part of the promises made to farmers by the political parties. These promises will take thousands of crores of rupees to honour but the political parties concerned do not appear to have been inhibited by the fact that there aren’t adequate revenue streams to come good on the commitments.

For instance, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said farm loans up to Rs two lakh availed from state-owned banks or cooperative banks in both Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan would be waived. This is untenable. There is no denying that farmers are in distress and they need hand-holding to survive and get out of the debt trap. But, revenues in several states are not enough to support such tall promises. A case in point is the poll promise in Punjab and Karnataka made by Gandhi during earlier election campaigns there. But, the states are now struggling to keep his promise. Waivers in the two states are reportedly limited to farmers sourcing theirs from cooperative banks. This may also happen in Madhya Pradesh given the huge debt the state has at Rs 187,637 crore as on March1, 2018.

As for the BJP, the only face-saver was not promising loan waivers. Instead, it offered goodies worth Rs 66,600 crore that include proportionate bonus payments based on land holding size and output, pensions, special fund and subsidised loans along with building a farm-trade corridor. More or less the same seems to have been attempted by both the Congress and the BJP in Rajasthan. Incumbent chief minister Vasundhara Raje seems to have got a taste of her own medicine given that she promised waivers last time round.

Even in Telangana, where TRS had perhaps thought that securing a second term was a cakewalk, has now promised loan waivers up to Rs 1.5 lakh. Evidently, the TDP-Congress tie-up has shaken K. Chandrasekhara Rao. For its part, the Congress-TDP alliance mooted waivers up to Rs two lakh and Rs 10,000 crore market support to farmers. Telangana, which started as a revenue surplus, zero debt state, has piled up debt worth a massive Rs 1,00,000 crore in four years. Competitive political campaigns with farmers at the core may have serious implications for states’ finances given their fragile nature and a centre unwilling to support farm waivers as a policy.