Madhya Pradesh’s home minister has held ghosts and evil spirits responsible for farmer suicides in the state and not poverty due to crop failure.
According to Hindustan Times, Bhupinder Singh has stated ‘demonic possession’ as a reason for deaths of two out of 418 farmers in Madhya Pradesh’s Sephore district. The minister said that they conducted a survey in the district to find out the reasons for the suicides and surprisingly he didn’t mention crop failure in his list.
Singh said in the assembly: "In our survey, we did not find any family saying that the farmers concerned had committed suicide due to crop failure-induced economic stress."However he found it very important to point out that two farmers were driven by evil spirits to commit suicide.
This claim of the minister spurred criticism from the opposition party with Congress MLA Shailendra Patel asking “Does this mean the state government believes in ghosts and superstition?"
Opposition MLA Jitu Patwari also said that given Singh's statement, the MP government must officially recognise the existence of ghosts.