According to a written reply Wednesday by state Home Minister Uma Shankar Gupta, as many as 5,838 farmers ended their lives during the period from 2006 to 2010.
Surprisingly, the minister maintained that only six of the 5,838 farmers killed themselves due to being overburdened with debt.

Prior to this, replying to Congress legislator Ramnivas Rawat's query, the home minister said that 89 farmers had committed suicide in 87 days since Nov 6, 2010.

However, Gupta added that only three of them took the extreme step due to debt.
The Shivraj Singh Chouhan government faced violent protests in December last year when thousands of farmers converged on state capital Bhopal to protest against the lack of irrigation and power in rural areas and accused the government of ignoring their problems.