Bhopal: Although the farmers’ issues seemed to dominate the narrative in the run up to Madhya Pradesh assembly election, which turned in favour of the Congress, the voters here have ranked the earlier government’s agricultural incentives considerably high.
Besides, in a state where farm loan waiver overshadowed other poll issues, much to the surprise of many, voters offered maximum credit to MP government’s policies of ensuring easy availability of agricultural loans.
This was observed in the findings of a recent report by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR). The ADR had carried out a survey among voters over issues which would shape their electoral choices and reviewed the government on various parameters.
In contrast to the prevalent anti-farmer image of Shivraj government, voters in the pre-poll survey had assigned 4.51 points to the state government over ‘Agriculture Loan Availability’, while the voters gave 4.28 points on the criteria ‘Electricity for Agriculture’.
The third highest grosser of voters’ support also came from agriculture sector as ‘Agricultural Subsidy for Seeds/Fertilisers’ maintained the third spot with average 3.94 points. In yet another positive indicator for Shivraj government’s endeavours in agri-sector, the respondents of the ADR survey had assigned 3.60 points to the state government over ‘Availability of Water for Agriculture’.
Although the report suggested that ‘Better Employment Options’ was the topmost poll issue for both rural and urban voters, Shivraj government had scored 3.75 points on ‘Training for Jobs’.
While the NCRB (National Crime Record Bureau) records have put MP in the dock time and again over rising crime graph in last few years, voters found ‘Law and Order/ Policing’ almost average by offering 3.71 marks.
The earlier MP government, however, fared badly with respect to women safety as the respondents allotted an average of 2.75 points to the criteria ‘Empowerment of Women and Safety’.
The government that was pitted against strong anti-incumbency understandably fared below average on public transport, eradication of corruption and garbage clearance.
On governance issues including ‘Water/River/Lake Pollution, Drinking Water Encroachment of Public Land /Lakes and Reservation For Jobs and Education, the Shivraj government was found lacking severally, according to the voters.
The state government under Shivraj Singh Chouhan had sided with the reserved categories when it came to offering reservation in promotion and this also had led to massive protests from the upper castes months ahead of assembly polls.
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