No direct programmes, Modi failed to prevent farmers' suicides: Gowda

Thiruvananthapuram: Former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda on Wednesday criticised the Centre’s policy for the agriculture sector, saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi “has not launched any direct programmes” to check farmers’ suicides in the country. [caption id=“attachment_2270402” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File image. Deve Gowda. AFP[/caption] “I am not happy with the measures taken by the Modi government for farmers. I do not think Modi has launched any direct programmes to prevent farmers’ suicides,” he said at a meet-the-press programme. “Some of the programmes Modi announced for farmers are not going to create any short term impact. I have discussed this with Prime Minister. But he never answered,” the JD(S) party supremo, who is here to campaign for LDF candidates for the 16 May Assembly elections, said. The direct transfer of subsidies has not reached beneficiaries and ‘achieved the desired results’, he said adding that farmers’ suicides was still rampant in the country, especially in states like Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Kerala. To a question whether BJP would open its account in Kerala, he said Modi and other union ministers are vigorously campaigning but “I do not know whether they will make an entry into the state assembly. I do not know the ground reality.” On his reported support to beleaguered liquor baron Vijay Mallya, the former Prime Minister said, “I want to clarify that unnecessarily my and my party’s names had been dragged into it. I only said that not only Mallya, but there are so many other people who have lakhs and lakhs of rupees of NPAs (Non-Performing Assets).”

“But I do not want to name and hurt any of them. I am not supporting Mallya,” he said. JD(S), an ally in the CPM-led LDF, has put up candidates in five constituencies for the upcoming polls.