Chief minister H D Kumaraswamy

MANDYA: Chief minister H D Kumaraswamy, in Mandya to inaugurate various projects, on Friday received a letter from a 44-year-old sugarcane farmer who killed himself and left a suicide note addressed to him.

In the note, the farmer, Jayakumar, blamed the government for mounting debts that drove him to despair after four years of drought.

In Ballari district, another farmer had committed suicide on Thursday, police said on Friday. Jummani Lingappa, 40, of Varakanahalli village, did not own farmland but took loans to cultivate crops on land his mother owns, police said on Friday.

The amount he owed had increased to ₹97,000 with compound interest and he was devastated by withered crops. On Thursday, he walked out of the village and hanged himself from a tree.

The twin suicides are likely to increase pressure on Kumaraswamy to resolve the problems of sugarcane growers and other farmers affected by drought. The CM has been under attack from the opposition for the cane growers’ crisis, and the suicides are likely to give his detractors further ammunition.

Addressing a gathering at Dudda village in Mandya earlier in the day, Kumaraswamy said the project to install a 125-foot-tall statue of ‘Mother Cauvery’ at the Krishna Raja Sagar reservoir in the district would boost tourism in the region. “If this project is implemented, it could generate 50,000 jobs,” he said.

