Blaming the Congress for the poor condition of farmers in the country, Union Minister Krishna Raj Wednesday said the BJP-led government at the Centre has been making efforts to make cultivators self-sustained.
Despite being in power for long, the Congress has failed to address the issue of agrarian distress, said the Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.
"Why the farmers are still facing debt despite 70 years of the Congress rule? Who was responsible for farmers' plight?
"Now, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji has set the target to double the farmers' income by 2022 and launched several schemes to make them self-sustained," Raj told reporters here.
In reply to a question about the farm loan waiver implemented by the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh, she alleged the party never tried to understand the real problems of farmers and only "misguided" them.
"It was the Narendra Modi government which has decided to fix MSP of crops at one-and-a-half times of their production cost," she said and expressed the hope the BJP-led ruling coalition at the Centre would retain power after the Lok Sabha elections.
She informed that a two-day national convention of the BJP's Scheduled Caste Cell is being organised at Nagpur on January 19-20, where 10,000 representatives from across the country would participate.
"At the convention, we will discuss the government's efforts and schemes aimed at upliftment of the SC community," Raj said.
The minister alleged the SC community was used as a vote bank by the Congress and because of this policy, its members still lag behind in development.
Asked to list five schemes being run by the Centre for the welfare of SC, she evaded a direct reply and said, "A large number of beneficiaries of all schemes, including Ayushman Bharat, Ujjwala Yojana and Jan Dhan, belong to this community.
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