The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: A Rajasthan man who was featured in a BJP advertisement implying his land was auctioned following his failure to repay a loan has claimed that no land of his was auctioned and he has no loans pending.
The advertisement, which was reportedly displayed across the state, targets the ruling Congress government on its alleged failure to waive the loans of tens of thousands farmers in the state.
“Over 19,000 farmers have had their land auctioned. Rajasthan will not bear this,” the advertisement says in Hindi.
Bhuraram, son of farmer Madhuram Jaypal whose face features in the advertisement, said in a video posted by chief minister Ashok Gehlot that he learned of the advertisement after someone spotted it in a village and shared a photo of it with him on WhatsApp.
He said that two men who visited him and his father for an unrelated reason had clicked Jaypal’s photo.
A BJP billboard featuring Madhuram Jaypal. Photo: Screenshot from X (formerly Twitter).
Later in the video, Gehlot is seen meeting Jaypal and Bhuraram.
The latter told the chief minister that the advertisement has harmed his father’s reputation in his village.
“Everyone says that your land has gone, it has been auctioned,” Bhuraram is heard telling Gehlot. “They say you have drowned in debt.”
When asked by Gehlot if people were losing their faith in Jaypal, Bhuraram said people in his village lost all their faith due to the advertisement.
An unidentified man who is seen accompanying Gehlot and the father-son duo said that when Jaypal was drinking tea in a hotel, the vendor asked him to pay immediately after recognising his face from the advertisement.
Gehlot then promises them that the BJP’s advertisements will be removed.
Soon after coming to power in Rajasthan in 2018, the Congress rolled out a loan waiver of Rs 14,000 crore, including Rs 6,000 announced by the outgoing previous government. Over 20 lakh farmers benefited from this scheme, The Hindu reported.
But farmers with bigger loans were not covered by the scheme, The Telegraph reported.
Early last year, banks in Rajasthan began issuing attachment or auction notices to many defaulting farmers across the state, leading the government to pass a Bill banning the auction of agricultural land of those farmers with less than five acres of land.
However, the Bill did not get the governor’s assent due to technical reasons, The Telegraph‘s report said.
The state assembly passed another Bill in August this year stipulating the constitution of a five-member commission to help farmers pay their loans through conciliation.