The Prime Minister on Sunday attacked the Congress, saying the Opposition party gets a loan waiver 'fever' before elections.
'People know the track record of the country's naamdar. They get the fever of loan waivers just before elections.... They try to act as messiahs of farmers by announcing farm loan waivers once in 10 years,' he told a rally in Vijaypur in Jammu.
The BJP too had announced a loan waiver for farmers in Uttar Pradesh ahead of Assembly elections in 2017 and the Yogi Adityanath government announced it after coming to power.
The Congress had promised to waive farmers' loans worth Rs 6 lakh crore in 2008-09, but gave loan relief of Rs 52,000 crore after coming to power, he claimed. 'A CAG report found that about 25-30 lakh people who got the loan waivers were not even eligible for it.' He said some beneficiaries were given cheques of Rs 13 only in the UPA era.
Modi said that under the BJP government's direct benefit transfer scheme, PM-Kisan, Rs 75,000 crore would be allocated annually. It means Rs 7.50 lakh crore will be deposited in farmers' accounts in the next 10 years.
Referring to Kashmiri Pandits, Modi said the central government was committed to respect and give dignity to the displaced community. 'The pain that they had to undergo, they had to leave their homeland. I have never said this but their pain is within me too,' he said.
