Congress president Rahul Gandhi hints towards the waiving off of farm loans

HYDERABAD: Rahul Gandhi the Congress president has hinted towards the waiving off of the farm loans across the country, if his party comes to power at the Centre in 2019. The Congress has promised before to waive up to Rs 2 lakh per head of farm loans in the state of Telangana if the People’s Front is elected to power.

On Wednesday while addressing the media in Hyderabad, along with the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh N Chandrababu Naidu, Gandhi said that the Congress has respected farmers as they are assets of the country, ‘unlike Narendra Modi who considers them as a liabilities’.

“Farmers’ crisis is not only an issue in Telangana. It is one of the two fundamental issues in the country. Modi treats farmers as liabilities but we are absolutely convinced that farmers are the biggest assets of this country and they need to be treated with respect. Why can’t you waive the debt of crores of farmers? We are committed to waive the farm loans in Telangana. It may not be good enough but it is the starting a point and an acknowledgement India owes to its farmers and Telangana owes to its farmers.” he said.

Gandhi said that the people’s Front government would be introducing technology into farms, which connect farmers to not just Hyderabad, the rest of India and world, other than setting up food processing units to close farms for enabling the farmers to sell their produce at remunerative prices.

“We want to act in a spirit of protection of farmers. We are committed for sure that Telangana is run by its people and spirit of youngsters who sacrificed themselves for Telangana,” Gandhi said.

Jobs for the youth of Telangana and the protection for farmers would be the twin pillars on which Telangana will be ‘rebuilt’ he said.