Congress general secretary and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh on Wednesday went on the offensive against state chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, accusing him of misleading the people through his “unsubstantiated” reply to the Opposition’s adjournment motion on the hail-affected farmers in the state Assembly on February 23.
The Congress leader on Wednesday shot off a letter to Mr Chouhan drawing his attention to the Opposition’s adjournment motion in the Assembly on the farmers’ crisis and his reply that 9,471 farmers had committed suicide between 1993 and 2003 when the Congress was in power in the state.
On the issue of the total number of suicides committed by farmers when he was chief minister, Mr Singh has stated categorically that he is in complete disagreement with the chief minister on the figures quoted by him in the Assembly.
Why had the BJP failed to play the role of an Opposition and take up the issue of farmer suicides if the situation was really as bad during his chief ministership, Mr Singh asked, adding that the present government cannot escape its responsibility by putting the blame for its own failure on the previous government.