BJP's PM-Kisan versus Cong's loan waiver to play out during LS poll campaign

NEW DELHI: It’ll be the BJP’s ‘assured income support’ versus the Congress’ promise of ‘loan waiver’ during the campaign, when both the parties vie for farmers’ vote in run up to the general election. The Prime Minister Modi made his party’s preference clear while launching the ‘assured income support’ scheme (PM-Kisan) at Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday.

Modi took a dig at the opposition for its loan waiver promise and earlier record under UPA. The Prime Minister also sought to explain to farmers as how such waiver benefits only limited number of farmers as compared to what his government offered in terms of assured income support.

“Loan waivers would have been easy and convenient for us too. We could also have distributed ‘ revari’ (goody) for political and election benefits, but we can’t commit such a sin. Loan waiver benefits only a select few,” he said, noting that only 20-25% of farmers on an average can get benefit from loan waiver in a village whereas the benefit could go up to 90% of farmers under the PM-Kisan.

On the day of the launch, over 1.01 crore farmers from 21 states and three Union Territories ( UTs) could get Rs 2,000 each transferred into their respective bank accounts.

The Prime Minister urged state governments to send the lists of beneficiary farmers to the Union government at the earliest, so that the remaining farmers can also receive the benefit of this scheme on time.

Under the scheme, each of nearly 12 crore eligible small and marginal landholder farmer families who have cultivable land up to 2 hectares (little less than five acres) will get Rs 6,000 per annum in three equal instalments every four months in a financial year. Such farmers together account for over 86% of total farmers in the country.

Barely hours before the formal launch of the PM-Kisan, the Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram, however, took a swipe at the government calling the launch day of the scheme the “cash for vote day”.


He tweeted, “Today is the ‘Cash for Vote’ day. The BJP government will officially give a bribe of Rs 2,000 per agricultural family to get their votes. The money will go to the cultivating farmer as well as the absentee landlord. Nothing can be more shameful in a democracy than ‘Bribe for Votes’. The greater shame is that the Election Commission is unable to stop the Bribe for Votes.”

His party, too, has been quite critical of the PM-Kisan ever since it was announced in interim Budget on February 1 and spoken about its promise of loan waiver in all states.

Nevertheless, the Congress-ruled states such as Punjab, Puducherry and Chhattisgarh participated in the scheme by sharing details of beneficiaries with the Centre. Even other opposition-ruled states including Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Odisha joined it on Sunday. West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan were, however, notable absentees among the opposition-ruled states.


Since the government made the scheme operational with effect from December 1, 2018, the first instalment of Rs 2,000 is to be transferred to bank accounts of each of this category of farmers by March 31.

On the first day of its launch, over 1.01 crore farmers received Rs 2,000 each in their bank accounts with Uttar Pradesh showing up with highest number of beneficiaries (40.92 lakh) followed by Gujarat (14.83 lakh), Tamil Nadu (9.17 lakh), Maharashtra (6.65 lakh) and Telangana (5.91 lakh). Remaining nearly 11 crore farmer families will gradually receive this amount by March 31 as their verified details get shared by states with the Centre.