Bhopal Madhya Pradesh Farmer Welfare and Agriculture Development Minister Ramkrishna Kusmaria has courted a controversy by blaming farmers’ suicides on their “past sins”. “These are old sins that are resulting in such incidents,”the minister told a TV channel on Wednesday, and elaborated it by pointing to indiscriminate use of “chemicals” that has reduced the fertility and “resistance power” of agricultural land.
A few cases of farmers’ suicides have been recently reported from Damoh, Raisen and Betul districts with the Opposition blaming them on debt trap and the state government citing “personal reasons” and furnishing information to suggest they were better off.
The minister late in the night said he had been misquoted.
It was Kusmaria who in September 2009 claimed to have spotted a UFO in his home district of Damoh and linked crop damages to the unusual phenomenon.
A champion of organic farming, the 69-year-old minister opposes genetically modified (GM) crops.
Kusmaria’s statement came a day after Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan met the Prime Minister to seek Rs 5,000-crore for damage to crops due to cold wave.
The statement also coincided with the Madhya Pradesh Human Rights Commission taking cognizance of the suicide reports and seeking reports from collectors concerned.
