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‘No leadership issue, Khattar doing well’

Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare and Rural Development Om Prakash Dhankar says that there is no plan to hold the parliamentary and state Assembly elections together.

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Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare and Rural Development Om Prakash Dhankar says that there is no plan to hold the parliamentary and state Assembly elections together. He claims that the most important decision of his government is to make farmers risk-free by increasing the compensation to Rs 12,000 per acre. He opines that with the split, the INLD is finished while the Congress is divided into various factions. Excerpts from an interview with Sushil Manav...   

The BJP has performed badly in the recent Assembly elections in five states. Your party lost power to the Congress in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. In Madhya Pradesh, too, the Congress has emerged as the single largest party. The parliamentary elections are around five months away. Even the Assembly elections are drawing near. How do you think this will impact the outcome of the 2019 parliamentary and Haryana Assembly elections?

The Assembly election results though shocking and surprising for us will not have any bearing on the parliamentary and Haryana Assembly elections next year. I tell you why? In December 2003, our party was in power at the Centre and the BJP won the Assembly elections in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh that month. In 2004, the BJP announced early parliamentary elections following the success in the Assembly elections. However, we lost power and people voted in favour of the UPA. Similarly, while the BJP formed governments in Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan alternately, our success was not replicated in Haryana till we won the elections in October 2014 on the back of Narendra Modi’s charisma. Hence, the Assembly election results of the five states will not have any impact on the 2019 parliamentary or Haryana Assembly elections. We will definitely perform better than 2014. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity in the country, including Haryana, is more than ever before. We will perform better than 2014 in the next parliamentary and Hayana Assembly elections. The BJP has developed a different culture of governance altogether and it will help us, as people like transparency in governance intoduced by our government.

You contested the 2014 Lok Sabha poll from Rohtak. Do you plan to fight the parliamentary elections next year also?

It is not for me to decide. In the BJP, the decision is always taken by the party. I am a disciplined soldier of the party. Whatever role the BJP assigns to me, I am always ready for it. 

Do you think the Assembly and parliamentary elections will be held together or when due?

The Assembly poll will not be held along with the parliamentary elections. As of now, there is no plan to hold the two elections together. 

Who do you think will lead the BJP in the coming Assembly elections in Haryana and who will be the Chief Minister if the party forms government again?

This question is irrelevant because we have Manohar Lal Khattar as our Chief Minister, who is doing very well. The BJP government has been performing wonderfully well under Khattar’s leadership. So, I don’t think there is a need to ask this question.

You are a senior leader of the BJP in Haryana. Do you aspire to be the Chief Minister of the state?

Now, you are asking me the same question in a different manner. As I said earlier, the government is doing very well under Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and in our party, personal aspirations of leaders do not have any place. We perform the roles assigned to us by the party.

You are among the few Jat faces in the BJP. Some Jat leaders were agitating for reservation during your government. Ugly violence in which 31 persons lost their lives was witnessed in February 2016. Do you think the Jat community, which is a major community in the state, will support the BJP this time?

Everyone in Haryana knows who did it. The violence was the result of frustration in the Congress. More specifically, it was the result of frustration of a former Chief Minister. The area where the violence was severe was the area of influence of the former Chief Minister. Congress people have been named as accused in the charge sheet so that the party pays for it in the coming elections. People of Haryana are peace loving and they will not tolerate attempts to disturb brotherhood and harmony. 

You hold important portfolios of agriculture and farmers’ welfare and rural development. What do you think are your achievements during the past four years?

See, if we are to talk about my performance as Haryana Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Minister, I can claim with conviction that I made our farmers free from risks. The most important decision of our government is to make farmers risk-free by increasing the compensation to Rs 12,000 per acre. The second step taken in this direction is the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY). In the past four years, farmers have got Rs 890 crore under it and Rs 2,500 crore as compensation from the Disaster Management Department. Besides, the government has paid Rs 268 crore as compensation that the previous government was supposed to pay. All this comes to Rs 3,658 crore, which means nearly Rs 900 crore annually have been given to farmers as compensation for crop loss. This is the maximum compensation given ever. The compensation for this year is yet to be given while farmers are yet to be paid the claims under the PMFBY for last year. Hence, the total compensation per annum will be even higher than Rs 900 crore. Another achievement, not merely as a minister but more as the president of the BJP’s Kisan Morcha, is that I have been able to get 50 per cent profit on the input costs for farmers as provided in the Swaminathan commission’s report. It is not that I am claiming credit on my own, even our national president Amit Shah gave me the credit for it. While in the Opposition, I had led several demonstrations of the Kisan Morcha in support of this demand. I have satisfaction that we could achieve this. A profitable minimum support price (MSP) was not a new demand, but as old as the advent of the green revolution and ever since the government started announcing the MSP in 1966. Farmers had been demanding a minimum profitable price instead of the MSP since then. We had had Chaudhary Charan Singh and HD Deve Gowda as Prime Ministers, and Chaudhary Devi Lal as Deputy Prime Minister. The Mirdha Commission and the Sompal Shastri Commission were formed, and so was the Swaminathan commission. All commissions said that profit must be added to the input costs to determine the MSP. In 1966, the Agriculture Price Commission was constituted and in 1980, it was renamed as the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices, but profit was never a criterion for determining the prices for crops. Now, farmers have a guarantee that they will get 50 per cent profit on their input costs. Further, the announcement of the MSP is one thing, but what we did at the state level is that we ensured the procurement of crops at the MSP. We purchased 18 lakh quintals of bajra at the MSP for Rs 355 crore, though the crop was not procured in our neighbouring states. We are giving the best state advisory price for sugarcane in the country. Taking note of the fact that an optimum level has arrived for wheat and paddy, we have made efforts to diversify the cropping pattern to fruits, flowers, vegetables, poultry, and fish farming. The milk production in the state has gone up from 2.25 crore litres per day to 2.70 crore litres per day and the per capita milk availability from 835 grams per day to 950 grams per day. Our target is to take it to 1,010 grams per day. We give Rs 9 crore per annum rewards for good milk animals.    

In rural development, Haryana has witnessed a turnaround in sanitation and overall development after the introduction of educated panchayats. As a byproduct of our decision to make educational qualification compulsory for panchayati raj institutions, 56 per cent of panchs and sarpanchs were elected unanimously. The average age of elected representatives came down to 33 years and the representation of women today is 5 per cent more than the actual reservation. This has brought social harmony. We have increased the financial powers of sarpanchs to Rs 20 lakh. We have initiated star ratings for panchayats, thus increasing competition among elected representatives.  

Before the BJP came to power, you were part of the party’s struggle for farmers. The BJP had demanded the implementation of the Swaminathan commission report. The party had made this promise in its election manifesto also. Has the party backtracked from it now?

Who says this? We have already implemented the Swaminathan commission report. Broadly, it made two recommendations. The first recommendation was that farmers should get 50 per cent profit on the input costs. We have already given that. The second recommendation was that they should get a compensation of Rs 10,000 per acre in case of crop damage. We have been giving Rs 12,000 per acre as compensation. The commission had recommended direct marketing; we have linked 54 of 108 mandis with e-NAM. The report stated that the government should promote horticulture; we have launched several schemes in this regard. We have already implemented all recommendations and Swaminathan himself had said on record that the BJP was going well in this direction.

The Opposition says that the MSP is based on the A2 plus FL formula, while the promise was to calculate it on the C2 formula, which is more comprehensive. How do you react to this allegation?

The Opposition parties have no right to say anything on the issue because they did nothing to provide a profit-based MSP to farmers. The Swaminathan commission submitted its report in 2006 and they kept sitting over it till 2014. When the BJP came to power, it immediately started taking measures to implement the recommendations of the commission. One has to understand that A2 plus FL is the only practical formula, as all expenses are included in it. C2 is not practical, as it includes interest calculated on the market price of the land. The Opposition parties’ criticism is like that in their time they made people to walk barefoot. We provided people slippers and now they accuse us of not providing them shoes.  

The Bhawantar Bharpai scheme was touted as a big relief for vegetable farmers, but in its first year, merely 504 farmers got claims of only Rs 12 lakh settled. How do you explain this?

Other states such as Madhya Pradesh also started this scheme last year. We also implemented Bhawantar Bharpai in bajra this year, besides usual vegetable crops. However, the scheme failed in its very first experimentation in Madhya Pradesh. We did not want our scheme to fail so we made it a little sterner. Gradually, we will make it more workable. Initially, we announced the same rates for all mandis of the state, and now we have made clusters of mandis. This will increase the number of beneficiaries. The need is to have laboratories to test the quality of produce. We have also decided to put in place a system where if there are no takers for farmers’ produce, there should be a dealer to buy it who can also avail of the benefit of the Bhawantar Bharpai scheme. This time, the number of farmers registered under the scheme has increased from 4,500 to 12,542 while the area has increased from 10,000 acres to 49,125 acres. Within a year, we will be able to cover one lakh acres. Vegetables are grown on 4.5 lakh hectares in the state. 

The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana has attracted a lot of criticism from the Opposition parties. They allege that the scheme is aimed at benefiting insurance companies. What do you say?

Nobody in Haryana believes this propaganda of the Opposition parties because farmers have benefited a lot from the scheme and they are happy. Farmers paid Rs 323 crore as premium from their pockets and received Rs 890 crore as claim settlement. Even the total premium that includes the shares of the state and Central governments comes to Rs 625 crore. In Sirsa district alone, claims to the tune of Rs 228 crore have been paid to farmers for their cotton crop loss.   

So far, only those farmers, who have taken loans from banks, are being insured under the PMFBY. If the scheme is really good, why farmers are not adopting it on their own?  

This is mainly because of lack of mechanism. The day crop insurance companies develop a mechanism like the one developed by the Life Insurance Corporation of India and general insurance companies, farmers will start opting for crop insurance on their own. 

You have introduced educational qualification in the panchayat elections. Has it made any difference to the performance of the panchayati raj institutions in Haryana?

It was only because of the educational qualification of the elected members of the panchayati raj institutions that we have been able to make our villages open defecation free. The success of the sanitation drive and e-Panchayats is also the direct result of educated panchayats. Owing to this, more powers have been provided to Zila Parishads and Panchayat Samitis in the state. The District Rural Development Authorities have been attached to Zila Parishads. 

The INLD, a major political party of Haryana, split recently. How do you think this development will impact politics in the state?

The INLD is finished with this split. Even the Congress is divided into various factions. The Congress could not muster courage to contest the municipal corporation elections on the party symbol. Congress leaders are not able to accept a Dalit as the state party president, who had himself said on record that those who beat him up were the same who burnt Rohtak in February 2016.  

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