As Farmers Grapple with Shortage of Urea in MP, Cong-BJP Leaders Engage in Twitter War over Crisis

Bhopal: Amid reports of farmers in Madhya Pradesh grappling with an acute shortage of urea during peak Rabi season and the Congress government squarely blaming the Centre for the crisis, a war of words has erupted on Twitter between the ruling and opposition camps.

The latest to join the war on social media is senior Congress leader and former chief minister Digvijaya Singh who hit out at Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentarians from the state over the issue.

“Madhya Pradesh has elected 28 BJP MPs out of the 29 Lok Sabha seats. Why are these MPs now mum on the shortage of urea? Why don’t they demand extra urea from the Centre,” Singh wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.

Last evening, Chief Minister Kamal Nath had voiced his disappointment over the issue on the micro blogging site.

“In view of the demand of urea for the Rabi season, we had sought 18 lakh metric tonnes of the same from the central government, but the latter decreased our quota of the fertiliser,” he said.

Nath blamed the Centre’s decision of reducing the quota of urea and a sudden surge in demand of the fertiliser for the panic among farmers.

If the BJP is truly a pro-farmer party, it should avoid politicisation of the issue and exert pressure on the Centre to release additional quota of urea, the chief minister further wrote.

Soon after, former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said Nath’s government has failed miserably in supplying urea and it should not blame others for its own failure, adding the present dispensation has been in deep slumber and not doing its duty properly. He said that during his regime, everything was planned in advance and hence, nobody faced any problem.

“The farmers were intimated three months in advance and they used to pick up their stock in time. This ensured the state never faced any urea shortage,” the senior BJP leader said.

BJP spokesperson Rajnesh Agrawal also took to Twitter and sought details of the state government’s preparations ahead of Rabi season and also its correspondence with the Centre for ensuring availability of the fertiliser in sufficient quantity.

Farmers across the state are anxiously waiting for their share of the fertiliser. Recently, some of them allegedly looted sacks of urea from a truck in Vidisha. Pictures of ryots lining up in serpentine queues and jostling with each other to buy stocks and sometimes, facing policemen’s ire are being circulated in social media.

Agriculture Minister Sachin Yadav has been claiming for a while that efforts are underway to ensure sufficient supplies and 80% of the stock received from the Centre is now being sold through cooperative societies. Earlier 50% of this stock was sold in open market, he added.

The minister said a crackdown has also been launched on hoarders.