A day after Singh faced Opposition flak, finance minister Arun Jaitley tweeted "replies given in Parliament on the issue of farmers suicide during UPA government" and attached four written replies given between March 2012 and February 2014 in both Houses of Parliament.
The government-opposition face off spilled over into the weekend as the BJP dug out data to show that it was not just Radha Mohan Singh, who as agriculture minister cited love affairs as one of the reasons for farmers' suicides.
A day after Singh faced Opposition flak, finance minister Arun Jaitley tweeted "replies given in Parliament on the issue of farmers suicide during UPA government" and attached four written replies given between March 2012 and February 2014 in both Houses of Parliament. All the replies of three agriculture ministers in the UPA regime included "love affairs" in the list of reasons for farmers suicides quoting data provided by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
Again turning the tables on the Opposition, with which it is engaged in a war of nerves in Parliament, the BJP countered the criticism against Singh saying as per NCRB data farmers suicides had come down in 2014 and the government for the first time has put out details of farmers suicide on the Bureau website so that details could be put before people transparently.
Jaitley on Saturday tweeted "replies given in Parliament on the issue of farmers suicide during UPA government" and attached four replies given between March 2012 and February 2014 in both Houses of Parliament.
Like Singh, other ministers also quoted data provided by the National Crime Records Bureau and included other reasons like bankruptcy and change in economic status, besides reasons like indebtedness and crop failure as causes cited by state governments.
In 2013, the then agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said in his reply that as per documentation of NCRB from 1995 to 2010, the reasons for suicide across professional categories include family problems, illness drug abuse, unemployment, property dispute, bankruptcy or sudden change in economic status, poverty, career problem, barrenness/impotency, cancellation/non-settlement of marriage, dowry dispute and fall in social reputation as causes of suicides.
Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries Charan Das Mahant and minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries Tarif Anwar cited the same reasons citing the same data in 2013 and 2014.
The BJP issued a statement said Singh had cited the data provided by NCRB and it was not the Agriculture Ministry's job to collate figures of farmers' suicides.
"According to the National Crime Records Bureau data, 11,772 farmers committed suicide in 2013. It's a matter of relief that due to positive steps taken by the Modi government, the numbers came down in 2014. 5,650 farmers ended their lives in 2014, meaning suicide numbers fell down by half in the initial year of the NDA rule," the party said.
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