Farmers not too enthused: Jakhar to Rahul

Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, February 9

At a strategy meeting of state Congress chiefs and legislature party leaders here on Saturday, Punjab Congress president Sunil Jakhar did some plainspeaking on issues rankling the people of Punjab on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections. 

He told party president Rahul Gandhi that much more needed to be done on the farm loan waiver, war on drugs and anti-sacrilege measures and that the party’s political messaging in each of these spheres needed to improve drastically.

Before Jakhar, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh spoke about the achievements of his government,  mentioning the Rs 5,500-crore farm loan waiver and the arrest of 25,000 people during the state’s war on drugs, assuring Rahul Gandhi of Congress’ victory in all 13 Lok Sabha constituencies.

The CM reportedly left early and the onus of answering the high command’s pointed questions on the ground situation fell on Jakhar. He is learnt to have told Rahul Gandhi that the farmers were not too enthused about the waiver. He also said neither Congress workers nor farmers were directly involved and the scheme was administered “bureaucratically rather than politically”. 

The political messaging on loan waiver could have been much better, Jakhar argued. 

On the war on drugs, he said people wanted the government to go after the “big fish”, a veiled reference to a section of Akalis. “The people have decided who’s guilty and they want us to go after the real culprits,” Jakhar reportedly told Gandhi. He also said the “conspirators of Guru Granth Sahib’s sacrilege in 2015 are still at large and need to be held accountable because the people want so”.