Congress today alleged that the Centre was imposing its crop insurance scheme on farmers and money is being deducted from the peasants even if they are unwilling to take up the scheme.
Former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who led a march through the streets before handing over a memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner, termed the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana "anti farmer."
He said the state government had reduced itself to an "agent of private insurance companies".
Congress chose Karnal as the venue for their protest as the constituency is being represented in the State Assembly by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.
"The Fasal Bima Yojana is being thrust on farmers and money is being deducted from the Kisan credit cards of the peasants even if they are not willing to take up the scheme," Hooda told the gathering of farmers.
Earlier, the Congress had said it will bring an adjournment motion on the crop-insurance issue during the ongoing monsoon session of the Haryana Assembly.
"This crop insurance scheme is actually Kisan Loot Yojna," said Hooda.
He said farmers are facing lot of hardships, but the BJP government, both at the Centre and in Haryana, is in deep slumber.
"The government is behaving like agent of private insurance companies as these companies are going to benefit in this scheme," Hooda said.
"The scheme treats one village as a unit, which is disadvantage to farmers, while premium is taken from every farmer," he said.
He demanded that the government should pay the entire premium and insure farmers' crop if it is "pro farmer".
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Meanwhile, state Congress chief Tanwar rued that the fissure in the state unit of his party was widening.
"It's sheer unfortunate that such things are happening in the party, when we are trying to strengthen the party from village level to top level by raising issues of farmers, labourers, weaker sections and middle class, said Tanwar."
"Now is the time to expose the BJP when it is involved in neck-deep corruption as far as land deals are concerned in Gurugram and other places. But instead of fighting against the BJP, some of the people are targeting us," Tanwar told
