Will farmers' loan waiver promise in Uttar Pradesh be another BJP jumla?

Jumla, an Urdu-origin word, is one of the most hated expressions of BJP leaders, workers and even supporters. It means empty promise. Surprisingly, the man who made this part of contemporary political discourse is BJP's president Amit Shah.

Defending BJP's promise to people before the Lok Sabha election that they will get Rs 15 lakh each once black money stashed away was brought back to the country, he said in an interview the promise was just a political jumla.

From that day onwards, it has become one of the most lethal weapons for the ruling party's opponents. They hit at the BJP with this word whenever any promise is not fulfilled.

Loan waiver for farmers in Uttar Pradesh too may soon be added by the ruling party's detractors as another jumla. The BJP government in Uttar Pradesh is just a few days old. So how can the promise be dubbed as another electoral jumla? Isn't it too early to make such a conclusion?

Let's look at what the BJP and its leaders promised before the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election on this issue. And how they changed tune after election victory.

The UP BJP election manifesto was called Lok Kalyan Sankalp Patra (Pledge for People’s Welfare). Under the header "Economic Help to Farmers" it made several promises including farm loan waiver. It promised to waive all loans of small and marginal farmers.

In his first rally in Meerut on February 4 after the polls were announced, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reiterated the party's promise of waiving off loans of small and marginal farmers and paying the dues of sugarcane growers within 14 days of coming to power.

Almost a month later, Modi addressed another public rally in Deoria and said: "We will waive off farmers’ loans in our first cabinet meeting after the results of UP polls on March 11."

He made similar commitments in several rallies. The commitment to fulfil the promise in 14 days or in the first cabinet meeting. Similar promises were made by Amit Shah and several senior leaders of the party, such as Rajnath Singh.

There are some 2.30 crore farmers in the state, of which 2.15 crore are small and marginal farmers. A loan waiver to them will cost the UP government nearly Rs 36,000 crore. The farmers of UP have taken an amount of Rs 8,400 crore from cooperative banks and Rs 27,419 crore from commercial banks.

Warning the government against any such move, the chief of India's largest bank, State Bank of India, spoke out against the loan waiver. SBI chief Arundhati Bhattacharya today said that farm loan waivers potentially disturb credit discipline and raise hopes for multiple future waivers.

The ruling BJP is speaking in different voices after coming to power. On March 16, 2017, agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh during a discussion in the Lok Sabha said: "For Uttar Pradesh, we had said that if we form a government in the state, we will waive off loans of farmers. The cost would be borne by the central exchequer."

A week later, finance minister Arun Jaitley has made a U-turn. On March 24, he said in the Rajya Sabha: "This issue (loan waiver) has cropped up in several states. The Centre has its policies for the agriculture sector under which we provide interest subvention and other support. We will continue to give all that. If a state has its own resources and wants to go ahead in that direction, it will have to find its resources. The situation where the Centre will help one state and not the others will not arise."

The agriculture minister said "the cost (of loan waiver) would be borne by the central exchequer" but the finance minister said "the state will have to find its resources". Two central ministers speaking in different languages in Parliament has created suspicion about the BJP's intention to fulfil its commitment of loan waiver to farmers.

A week after assuming office and without a single cabinet meeting, UP CM Adityanath has taken 50 decisions. But in these 150 hours there wasn't any cabinet meeting. So the first cabinet meeting which is supposed to waive off farm loans is still being awaited.

On March 28, the state government said it was considering several proposals to waive off farmers' loans. An official spokesperson said that as UP is already facing an additional expenditure burden of Rs 25,000 crore for the implementation of recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission, the government is considering various proposals, including seeking help from the Union finance ministry. But the option of seeking help from central government is already closed. The Union finance minister has refused to step in.

UP's finances are in a mess. The Centre is worried that any help to UP will set a dangerous precedent and every state will start demanding similar loan waivers. Though the UP cabinet hasn't met yet, the PM's commitment to fulfil this promise either in 14 days or in the first cabinet meeting seems to be on edge.

We will have to wait and watch if the loan waiver promise will end up as another jumla or whether BJP will manage to fulfil it.

Also read: Five white lies of Modi's black money promise