The Gujarat Government’s recently announced Rs 10,000 crore relief package for farmers affected by unseasonal rains has triggered widespread political backlash and dissatisfaction across party lines. While Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel hailed the package as a crucial lifeline for over 42 lakh farmers, opposition parties, BJP insiders, and the RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) have lambasted the move as inadequate and disconnected from actual ground realities.

R K Patel, State General Secretary of the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh, criticized the relief’s uniform compensation criteria, highlighting the disparity between compensation for 25% crop loss and total crop failures. “The compensation amount announced hardly covers farmers’ real investments, which range from Rs 18,000 to Rs 28,000 per hectare,” Patel stated, cautioned that farmers’ discontent could intensify and warned that the Kisan Sangh might join their struggle.

Adding to the internal dissent, BJP Leader Chetan Malani resigned from all party posts in Amreli district, labeling the package “a cruel joke on farmers.” He accused the state government of “lavish indifference” and ignoring the mounting financial woes of farmers cultivating cotton, groundnut, onion, and soybean crops devastated by recent rains. Malani’s resignation has cast a spotlight on fissures within the BJP’s grassroots ranks.

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Meanwhile, Gujarat Congress President Amit Chavda launched sharp attacks on the BJP government, accusing it of “mocking the farmers’ pain” amid growing debt burdens averaging Rs 56,000 per farmer. Chavda asserted that without debt waivers or adequate insurance coverage, farmers are left “begging for survival.” Citing a recent farmer suicide in Dwarka, he warned that Congress would intensify protests if the government failed to increase relief measures.

Despite government assurances of crop procurement at support prices worth Rs 15,000 crore and various aid initiatives, the chorus of political criticism underscores growing frustration in Gujarat’s agrarian communities. The relief package, though significant in scale, is deemed by many stakeholders as failing to truly meet farmers’ urgent demands amid worsening financial stresses.

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