The state BJP will launch a massive outreach programme to connect with farmers ahead of Assembly polls.
The party has identified around 3,500 areas where farmers committed suicide in the past four years during the Congress regime and plans to hold conventions at these places over the next few weeks.
The conventions will be held soon after the completion of the party's Nava Karnataka Nirmana Parivarthana Yatra on February 4. The BJP has already decided that "failure" of state government to rescue distressed farmers will be one of its main plank in the coming Assembly elections. The farmers' initiative will be taken up by the party's Kisan Morcha.
Morcha vice president Basavaraj Ingin said the conventions will create awareness among farmers that committing suicide is not a solution for their woes. On the political plank, it will also take on the state government for not allowing the BJP-led NDA government's agricultural schemes like soil health card and crop insurance scheme reach the beneficiaries.
Local leaders will address the farmers and at some places there are plans to even invite state and national leaders to the conventions, Ingin said.
Another brief given to the morcha is to tell the farmers that they are being "misled" by the state government on the crop loan waiver scheme. In June this year, Karnataka government announced crop loan waiver
up to Rs 50,000 per farmer costing Rs 8,165 crore to the state exchequer.
The government stated that the move will help 22.27 lakh farmers who availed of loans from cooperative institutions. The Congress leaders have been blaming the BJP for not reciprocating the measure by pressuring the Centre to waive crop loans borrowed from nationalised banks. "In Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh the state governments waived the crop loans availed from national banks and bore the burden," he said.
