Hitting out at those who criticised the UPA Government’s Rs 60,000 crore loan waiver for farmers, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said questions were not raised when industrialists defaulted on loans.

“When one spends one rupee for the poor, everybody asks why we are spending one rupee on the poor, when the same one rupee goes to the non-poor, there is no criticism,” he said, kicking off his four-day tour of Karnataka at B R Hills in Chamarajanagar district. “The issue is not about being pro-poor, it is about being fair and I commend the Prime Minister and Congress president for listening to the voice of the poor,” he said.

Recalling his recent visit to Orissa, he said, “lot of people ask questions when we do loan waivers as to why we are doing loan waivers, but when large industrialists default on their loans, the same questions are not asked.”

Airing his views on the Government, he said, “the Government is about balance, the difference between this government and the last government is the way we view this balance. In this scale, we put some extra efforts on poor side of the balance. The earlier Government put that on the other side.”

However, the MP did not favour suggestions to extend the loan waiver to cover all farmers. “When you are making a Government policy, you have to take into account financial implications. The idea is not to destroy the system,” he said. If you waive the loan for everybody, then the whole system will collapse, he said.

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