Cong leader compares MP CM to Jallianwala Bagh's General Dyer

Congress leader Ashok Chavan Monday compared Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to infamous British military officer Reginald Dyer, who had ordered the firing on unarmed citizens in Punjab's Jallianwala Bagh in 1919, killing over a thousand people.

Chavan, who was campaigning at Sausar in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, brought up the Dyer comparison against the backdrop of the police firing on farmers in Mandsaur district of the state in June last year.

Six farmers, part of massive crowds protesting against poor crop prices and demanding farm loan waivers from the Chouhan government, had died in the firing on June 6 last year.

"Like General Dyer had fired on poor Indians under the British Raj, Chouhan fired on innocent farmers in Mandsaur," Chavan, the Maharashtra Congress chief, told the gathering.

He alleged that Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and his Madhya Pradesh counterpart Chouhan had lied about farm loan waivers, adding that both were running "feku sarkars" (governments prone to hyperbole).

Chavan claimed that the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government under then prime minister Manmohan Singh had announced a historic farm loan waiver scheme in 2009. Chavan was the Maharashtra chief minister at the time.

Hitting out at Chouhan over the Vyapam scam, the Congress leader said, "Vyapam left thousands unemployed. Today is Constitution Day, but Chouhan is running an unconstitutional government in Madhya Pradesh. With what face can the BJP ask you for votes?"