Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Sunday said farmers are paying the price for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “failure”, while Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra targeted BJP leaders by alleging that the chowkidars [watchmen] worked only for the rich without bothering about the poor.

“Your failures are your failures. Why are you punishing the farmers for your failures? Our farmers give us life,” Mr. Gandhi wrote on his Facebook page, citing a media report that said the ₹10,000-crore dues to sugar cane farmers were yet to be cleared by the Uttar Pradesh government.

Ms. Vadra, who is in charge of party affairs in eastern Uttar Pradesh, also took to Twitter to target the government over a similar report on the plight of sugar cane farmers. “The families of sugar cane farmers toil day and night but the Uttar Pradesh government does not even take the responsibility of paying their dues,” Ms. Vadra said. “₹10,000 crore of farmers’ dues means everything, including their children’s education, food, health, and the next produce comes to a standstill. These chowkidars only work for the rich and do not care about the poor,” she said.

The chowkidar reference is to BJP leaders including Prime Minister Modi who had added chowkidar to their names in Twitter handles. The BJP’s Main bhi chowkidaar (I too am a watchman) campaign is a counter to the Congress campaign against Mr. Modi with the party coming up with the slogan Chowkidar chor hain [the watchman is a thief] to attack Mr. Modi over the Rafale deal.