Agriculture Minister Prabhulal Saini is contesting the Anta assembly seat for the second time. He starts his day as early as 8 am and winds up his day past 11 pm after meeting people in panchayats spread across his constituency. While he is busy offering condolence to a grieving family in one of the panchayats, in the next one a few kilometers away, DJ vehicles are playing the song “Prabhulal mali ko Beto, mangan aayo bote (vote). Saini, with his disarming smile and turban, strikes an instant chord with the locals. When a lady welcomes him with a garland in Niyana village and a kid touches his feet, he puts that garland around his neck. Known to be a charmer with his down-to-earth talk with villagers, he faces stiff challenge from Pramod Jain Bhaya whom he defeated in last elections. Abhishek Tiwari caught up with him in Sorasan village where he spoke of the plight of garlic cultivators , the Congress candidate and the government’s works. Excerpts:
What report card are you taking back to the people, this time?
My bets are on development. Our government has carried out various welfare works which were never done in last 70 years. Roads have been made, indoor stadium has been constructed at Mangrol, Sonwa water scheme is provided water to 47 villages freeing the people from fluoride water. There was no scheme which the Congress started for irrigation and drinking water in this area. One more water scheme Anta Baldevpura Nagda is in the works to provide water to people in constituency. You must have seen the roads while coming here. These are Gaurav paths which crisscross this constituency.
There is large farmer population in your constituency. What has been done for their development?
Apart from other things, the farmers have received the benefit of the massive loan waiver scheme in the area. It has been the biggest benefit, which the farmers have been given by any government, and never by the Congress at this scale. We have also worked on waiving off the electricity bills of farmers. This will go in my favour.
But what about the Garlic farmers? They seem to be in bad shape.
One needs to understand this. This time it was a bumper crop of garlic. In place of 2 lakh metric tonnes, the average annual production, this time we harvested 7 lakh metric tonnes of garlic. We made purchase of garlic under market intervention scheme. But in this scheme only 10 % could have been procured as per the rules that bind the perishable commodities. We had to purchase 70,000 qunitals but still we still managed to purchase 95,000 quintals from farmers.
There have been complaints related to procurement procedure at the centres…
Many farmers applied online. It was to bring in transparency to remove corruption in the system. The ones who registered first were given priority. However, the Opposition has been claiming that in spite of issuing tokens weighing of garlic was not being done. The people who are saying this do not even know the process. They don’t even know what MSP means.
But the farmers are angry. Will it hurt your prospects this time?
Congress never purchased more than 2000 qunitals of garlic. They never bought sarson, urad chana etc. what is the Opposition talking about? We did everything for the farmers. Whatever shortfall was there, the cooperatives department was given directions for removal of the same.
You are known to change seats in election. This time you are contesting from the same seat?
I am depending on the work done by me. I am known as Vikas Purush. Now, I am longer carry the tag of outsider. Moreover, if I am outsider, then the Congress candidate is also an outsider as he belongs to Baran district.
