Mandsaur firing on farmers has put Union Minister Radha Mohan Singh on defensive as he is fighting shy of meeting the media. Singh called off a scheduled media conference on the achievements of his department over the past three years on Thursday.
It would have looked inappropriate, said a Ministry source. When farmers are being killed how can the govt showcase its achievements? wondered another.
It bears recall that six farmers were killed in police firing on. The stir against the govt has spread to many other areas, according to media reports.
The cancellation of media interaction flowed from the fear that the Mandaur firing would be the issue of debate not the govt achievements. The NDA govt is yet to understand what led to the firing with conflicting media reports.
Prime Minister who met Radha Mohan and others on Wednesday again called for a meeting with senior ministers on Thursday. The govt , no doubt sees it as dark patch on its record as slogan for doubling farmers income made most of PM and AM’s speech.
It is no secret that the Modi govt launched several measures in the field of agriculture to transform the lives of farmers. By coating urea with neem it stopped its diversion for black marketing and thereby all the stories of urea riots became a thing of the past, said one of the sympathizers of the govt who did not want to be named.
Even the budget allocation for agriculture was the highest ever given , he underlined. But India is a huge country and it takes time for the results to show, he added.
But he failed to explain why the loan waiver which was given to the farmers in UP should not be expanded to cover other BJP states- an idea which is a sure way of committing political harakiri. Opponents blame the govt for being opportunistic-when in UP it offered waiver to win elections but is unwilling to do so in states where there no immediate political return – a point hard to counter.