BHUBANESWAR: The Congress is hedging its bet on farmers as it looks to regain lost ground in the forthcoming assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Buoyed by the recent electoral success in neighbouring Chhattisgarh , the party is hoping it would rub off on western Odisha where party president Rahul Gandhi would be holding a rally on Friday. The public meeting in Bargarh, the rice bowl of Odisha, would be his second within a week, having addressed a gathering at Jeypore in Koraput district on March 8.The Congress is hoping its promises of farm loan waiver, financial assistance for five years to farmers, better price on paddy, establishment of food processing plants and cold storages will help them reap benefits in Bargarh, which alone contributes more than one-fourth of the nearly 70 lakh metric tonne of paddy produced annually in Odisha."We can feel the support of farmers behind Congress as they hardly got any benefit from the BJD government in Odisha and the BJP at the Centre. They have been neglected by both the parties," Odisha Congress president Niranjan Patnaik said."The Congress, which has already waived farm loans in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, will replicate it in Odisha if it forms the next government," Niranjan added.He said the BJD government's Krushak Assistance for Livelihood and Income Augmentation (Kalia) scheme and the Centre's PM-Kisan yojana are no match for the Congress' farm loan waiver and a host of other offers the party has proposed to ease agrarian crisis.Rahul, too, had focussed extensively on farm loan waiver and other pro-farmer measures during his earlier meetings in Odisha. He has also been vocal against Naveen Patnaik and Narendra Modi for allegedly doing precious little for farmers, women and unemployed youths.The Congress president's meeting in Bargarh also holds significance as the Congress wants to revive its organisation there as well as in other western Odisha pockets where the party already suffered setbacks following the resignation of some of its key leaders, including Naba Kishore Das (Jharsuguda) and Jogesh Singh (Sundargarh).Western Odisha comprising 11 districts accounts for a third of the seats in the 147-member assembly as well as a third of the 21 Lok Sabha seats.

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