The wave in the country is unfavourable to the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had lost credibility, NCP chief Sharad Pawar said on Saturday. In an interview to PTI, the Maratha strongman cited the BJP’s losses in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh in the assembly polls held in November-December last year. Pawar said these states were ruled by the BJP for 10 years and nobody could have predicted the party’s drubbing.
“Modi himself concentrated on and campaigned extensively in these states. But what was the ultimate result? It is a clear indication that the wave in the country is not favourable to the BJP, particularly in rural India,” he said. He said people in rural areas were miffed with the Centre over farm distress, farmers’ suicides and other agrarian issues.
Pawar said during his term as the Union agriculture minister, when he learnt of a farmer’s suicide in Yavatmal in Maharashtra, he brought then prime minister Manmohan Singh to meet the distressed family. The NCP chief said he had found at the time that the cause of the farmers’ suicide was agrarian crisis, financial burden and notice by banks for defaulting on loan repayment. “Within one week, I gave a proposal to the Cabinet to waive agriculture loans. Loans worth Rs 70,000 crore were waived. Not only that, interest rates were substantially reduced,” he said.