Chandigarh: Unseasonal rains and hailstorms in many states have ruined crops standing on several thousand acres of land leading to great distress and financial trouble for lakhs of farmers. Many farmers and agricultural labourers have committed suicide while others are burdened with huge loans that they are unable to pay due to crop loss.
Even as Central and state governments try to reach out to the affected farmers and help them out, Haryana Agriculture Minister Om Prakash Dhankar has made an extremely insensitive remark calling those committing suicide “cowards”.
Dhankar made it clear that Haryana government will not help families of those farmers and agricultural labourers who have committed suicide because the administration is not for cowards.
He also targeted the Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi over the alleged suicide of Rajasthan farmer Gajendra Singh and alleged that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was doing politics over the tragic incident.
Opposition Congress took on Dhankar for his comments and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party government of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar of not being sympathetic towards the farming community.
Haryana Congress chief Ashok Tanwar said the recent spate of suicides by farmers was unfortunate and the state government’s apathy was compounding the problem.
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