Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly on Thursday witnessed uproarious scenes after the opposition BJP accused the Kamal Nath government of discontinuing the 'bonus' given to farmers in the state.
Due to the pandemonium, the Speaker adjourned the House twice before the BJP members staged a walkout over the issue. During the Question Hour, a debate was initiated over the issue of farmers' plight.
Replying to the debate, Revenue Minister Govind Singh Rajput said the farmers who lost their crops due to flooding during the monsoon were being compensated.
However, dissatisfied with the minister's reply to the question raised by BJP MLA Devendra Verma, the latter's party colleagues, including the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Gopal Bhargava, former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and another senior leader Narottam Mishra, sought to know why the farmers were not being given the bonus against their crop procurement.
The opposition members said that despite the government's announcement of providing bonus of Rs 160 per quintal of wheat, farmers were not getting it.
Besides, for buying the wheat crop from farmers as per the minimum support price (MSP) fixed by the Centre, the cultivators were being given bonus for a decade under the scheme launched by the BJP government, they said.
The BJP legislators rose to their feet saying there was no budgetary sanction for the bonus.
Chief Minister Kamal Nath sought to turn the tables on the BJP by blaming its government at the Centre on the issue.
He said he had a copy of the letter received from the Centre which stated that if the state government had paid wheat bonus to farmers or plans to pay it in future, procurement from the state would be reduced by 7 lakh metric tonnes.
Nath added that he was ready to hold talks with Chouhan over the issue in order to take it up with the Centre.
The chief minister also alleged that although the state government had suffered heavy losses running into crores of rupees, 28 BJP MPs, out of the 29 in the state, have not done enough to get compensation from the Centre.
He said "tongue-wagging" and "running a government" were different things altogether. To this, BJP's Narottam Mishra alleged that the state government was just wagging its tongue and doing nothing.
This led to noisy scenes in the Assembly, prompting Speaker NP Prajapati to adjourn the House for 10 minutes. When the House re-assembled, allegations flew back and forth between the two sides, following which the House was once against adjourned for five minutes.
After the proceedings resumed, the BJP members staged a walkout from the Assembly, denouncing the Congress-led government's stand over the issue.
(With inputs from PTI)
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