Bhopal, Jun 23 (PTI) Madhya Pradesh agriculture minister Kamal Patel on Tuesday advised the farmers whose crop loan has not been waived as promised by the earlier Congress government to file cases against Rahul Gandhi and Kamal Nath.

In the run-up to 2018 Assembly elections, the Congress had promised to waive loans of farmers up to Rs two lakh within 10 days of coming to power.

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"The former chief minister (Nath) has cheated the farmers in the name of loan waiver. The loans of those who received waiver certificates too were not waived till now," he alleged.

"The cheated farmers should file a police complaint against the then Congress chief (Rahul Gandhi) and Nath under sections 420 (cheating) of IPC," he said.

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The Congress, which lost power in March this year, denied the BJP minister's allegations.

The Congress government had waived loans of 22 lakh farmers up to the amount of Rs one lakh, and was in the process of waiving loans of remaining farmers when the government fell, said state Congress's election cell in-charge J P Dhanopia.

Patel claimed that Gandhi had promised to waive the loans of farmers in ten days of coming to power. "But to date there is not a single farmer whose Rs two lakh loan was waived off," the minister claimed.

He also alleged that while announcing loan waiver the Congress government virtually finished cooperative banks as they did not have powers to waive crop loans, and farmers ended up becoming defaulters as loans were neither waived nor they repaid the dues.

Dhanopia countered the allegation saying that the state's financial condition was very bad, yet the Nath government had started the process of waiving loans.

The BJP should now fulfill that promise as it had been made by an elected government, the Congress leader demanded.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)