Karnal, March 2: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and BSP Supremo Mayawati on Sunday sought to pick holes in the Centre's ambitious loan waiver scheme saying that the Congress-led UPA thought of the farmers when the Lok Sabha elections are not far away. "Had the government given the bonus of loan waiver to farmers in its first budget, they would have benefitted a lot," she said, addressing a huge 'Sarvajan samaj bhai chara banao rally' here. Pointing out that the budget has not cared to explain as to how the farmers' loan would be waived off and when will the money reach them, she accused the Centre of not making any provisions to provide relief to those farmers, who have borrowed money from money-lenders. "There are around 46 per cent of such farmers.

The government also did not announce any loan waivers for those people who have borrowed for starting their own small and medium level business," the BSP leader said. She also cautioned the people not to be misled by negative propaganda, spread by the opposition Congress and BJP. "The opposition always tries to use 'divide-and-rule' policy against the BSP by raising false cases against me like misappropriation of assets and the Taj Corridor cases but the public support has always been with me," she said. Mayawati, angling to become the Prime Minister, sought to be one-up on Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA).