Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Sunday accepted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s request and announced at a specially decked up venue in the state capital that he has decided not proceed on fast as the Prime Minister has arranged a meeting between him and Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on February 20 to sort out the farmer’s crisis and other critical issues confronting the state.
Mr Chouhan made this announcement before senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders and a huge gathering of party workers. He said that he was calling off the fast after taking permission from party president Nitin Gadkari and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj. Prior to this, state BJP chief Prabhat Jha had delivered a fiery speech, applied the traditional “tilak” on Mr Chouhan’s forehead amidst the chanting of Vedic hymns and announced that the chief minister was starting his fast. Mr Chouhan criticised the Prime Minister and the government of India for failure to respond to the request for a special `2,400-crore action plan for the farmers of Madhya Pradesh, who suffered huge crop damage due to frost and severe cold wave this winter.
Mr Chouhan said he had failed to get justice, even though he had met the PM and other Union ministers several times since 2006 to draw the Centre’s attention towards poor supply of coal for power generation and take up issues like allocation of foodgrains in consonance with the number of BPL families, revision of allocation under the Indira Awas Yojana because the current allocation is based on faulty data and is highly unfair to the rural shelter-less families, and lack of action on findings for Madhya Pradesh under Pradhan Mantri Gramin Sadak Yojna.