Gujarat's exclusion from PMFBY — the Centre's flagship crop insurance scheme — has left its farmers without meaningful coverage, according to Congress ex-MP Raju Parmar. Congress is now leveraging this gap in the PM's home state to challenge the BJP's agrarian credibility, turning a policy vacuum into a potent electoral weapon ahead of 2027. Neither the BJP nor the Gujarat state government had publicly responded to Parmar's specific allegations as of publishing.

Here is a question that should make any political strategist in Gandhinagar squirm: how does the Prime Minister sell a flagship crop insurance scheme to 640 million Indians when the farmers in his own state cannot access it?

That is the precise nerve Congress chose to press this week. Former MP Raju Parmar, flanked by Gujarat Congress leaders, stood before cameras and laid out a charge so structurally awkward for the BJP that it barely needed embellishment: Gujarat, the showcase of the so-called 'Gujarat Model,' has been operating outside the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) for years — and its farmers, according to Parmar, are paying the price in uninsured devastation, as reported by The Indian Express.

Neither the BJP nor the Gujarat state government had publicly responded to Parmar's specific allegations regarding the PMFBY vacuum as of publishing. India Herald will update this report if and when an official response is issued.

The PMFBY, launched in 2016, was designed as the Centre's definitive answer to India's agrarian distress cycle — subsidised premiums, rapid claim settlement, a safety net for the farmer who bets everything on the monsoon. By the government's own telling, it is the world's largest crop insurance programme. And yet Gujarat, governed uninterrupted by the BJP since 1998, opted out of the scheme, replacing it with a state-run alternative. According to Times of India, Congress has now formally demanded that the state government implement the central scheme, arguing that Gujarat's substitute has left farmers worse off.

The Structural Irony No Press Release Can Paper Over

The decision to exit PMFBY was not unique to Gujarat — several states, including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and West Bengal, pulled out at various points, citing disputes over premium-sharing with the Centre or dissatisfaction with private insurers. But none of those states carry the political weight of being the Prime Minister's home turf. When Narendra Modi speaks of PMFBY from a national platform, the unspoken asterisk — except where I governed for over a decade — is the kind of contradiction opposition parties dream of exploiting.

And Congress, to its credit, appears to have grasped that this is not merely a policy complaint but a narrative weapon. The charge is not simply that Gujarat farmers lack insurance. It is that the 'Gujarat Model' — the BJP's single most exported political brand, the proof-of-concept for everything from governance efficiency to development-first politics — has a gaping hole precisely where the Centre claims its greatest agrarian achievement lies.

Political Pulse

The backstage read in Congress circles, according to party insiders speaking to reporters, is that this is not a one-off presser. The talk in Gujarat's political corridors is that the state Congress unit has been instructed to build a sustained campaign around farm distress — with PMFBY as the sharpest spear in the kit. The calculus, whispered in Delhi's war rooms, is straightforward: if Congress can make the crop insurance vacuum a kitchen-table issue in Saurashtra and North Gujarat — regions with significant agrarian populations — it chips away at precisely the rural base the BJP has spent two decades cementing.

There is chatter, too, about the timing. With Gujarat assembly elections on the horizon for 2027, every presser, every district-level rally on farm issues is an early deposit in the electoral bank. The Congress calculation, as party observers put it, is that the BJP cannot easily rejoin PMFBY now without conceding that its exit was a mistake — and cannot stay out without conceding the Congress charge. It is the kind of fork that opposition strategists live for. (This reflects political corridor speculation and party-level chatter, not confirmed internal strategy.)

By the Numbers

The scale of what is at stake sharpens the politics considerably:

• PMFBY, according to government data cited by Times of India, covers over 40 million farmer applications annually across participating states — Gujarat's farmers are entirely outside this net.
• Gujarat's state-level crop insurance alternative, Congress alleges, offers lower coverage limits and slower claim settlements than PMFBY, though the state government has not publicly released comparative performance data.
• Saurashtra and Kutch — Gujarat's most drought-prone belts — have seen repeated crop failures in recent years, making insurance coverage a survival question, not an abstract policy debate.

The Gujarat Model's Quiet Achilles Heel

India Herald's read of what is really driving this story goes beyond the presser itself. The 'Gujarat Model' has always been a curated narrative — industrial corridors, Vibrant Gujarat summits, defence manufacturing hubs (Defence Minister Rajnath Singh was in the state this very week talking up Gujarat as a defence manufacturing powerhouse, as reported by The Indian Express). The model's agricultural story, by contrast, has always been quieter, less photogenic, and more contested. Gujarat's farm sector has real achievements — drip irrigation adoption, dairy cooperatives, horticulture growth — but crop insurance was never the showpiece.

What Congress has identified, with some political acumen, is that the absence of PMFBY is not a gap in the margins — it is a gap at the centre of the agrarian social contract. When a farmer in Maharashtra or Madhya Pradesh suffers a crop failure, PMFBY is the first institutional response. When a farmer in Gujarat suffers the same, the response is thinner, slower, and — Congress argues — less generous. The political question writes itself.

What Comes Next — And Who Blinks

The forward dimension here is what makes this story worth watching well beyond the news cycle. If Congress sustains this campaign through 2026 and into the pre-election season of 2027, the BJP faces a choice with no clean exit. Rejoining PMFBY would be an implicit admission that the state-level alternative failed — handing Congress a victory lap. Staying out requires the state government to demonstrably prove its scheme outperforms the Centre's — a data battle the BJP has so far avoided.

Watch, too, for the Centre's response. The Modi government has historically been aggressive about defending PMFBY's national record. But defending a scheme that your own home state rejected creates a rhetorical contortion that no amount of data can smooth. The likely BJP counter — that Gujarat's alternative is tailored to local conditions and is superior — will need evidence that has not yet been made public. As of publishing, neither the Gujarat Chief Minister's office nor the state BJP unit has issued a rebuttal to Parmar's specific claims; India Herald has reached out and will update this report upon receiving a response.

And here is the deeper question Congress is really asking, the one that outlives any single presser or election cycle: if the 'Gujarat Model' is the template for India, why does it have a crop insurance vacuum where the rest of India has a safety net? It is the kind of question that does not need a loud answer. The silence is the answer.

Key Takeaways

• Gujarat opted out of PMFBY — the PM's flagship crop insurance scheme — and Congress is now weaponising this gap as a structural flaw in the 'Gujarat Model,' according to The Indian Express and Times of India.
• Congress's demand to rejoin PMFBY creates a political fork for the BJP: rejoining admits failure, staying out concedes the Congress charge — with 2027 Gujarat elections approaching.
• The crop insurance vacuum hits hardest in drought-prone Saurashtra and Kutch, where uninsured crop failures are a survival issue, not an abstract policy debate.
• Neither the BJP nor the Gujarat state government had publicly responded to Raju Parmar's specific allegations as of publishing — a silence that itself sharpens the political optics.
• India Herald's assessment: this is an early, deliberate Congress deposit in the 2027 electoral bank — designed to erode BJP's rural base in precisely the regions where the 'Gujarat Model' is most vulnerable.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Gujarat not part of PMFBY?

Gujarat opted out of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) and replaced it with a state-level crop insurance alternative. Congress alleges this substitute provides inferior coverage, according to The Indian Express. The Gujarat state government has not publicly explained the rationale for staying out in response to Parmar's latest allegations.

What is Congress demanding regarding crop insurance in Gujarat?

Congress, led by ex-MP Raju Parmar, is demanding that the Gujarat state government implement PMFBY so that farmers can access the central crop insurance scheme's benefits, as reported by Times of India.

How does this affect Gujarat farmers?

Gujarat's farmers are excluded from PMFBY's coverage net of over 40 million annual applications. Congress alleges the state alternative offers lower coverage and slower settlements, particularly impacting drought-prone regions like Saurashtra and Kutch.

Has the BJP or Gujarat government responded to Congress's allegations?

As of publishing, neither the BJP nor the Gujarat state government had issued a public rebuttal to Raju Parmar's specific claims about the PMFBY vacuum. India Herald will update this report when a response is received.

Will this issue impact the 2027 Gujarat elections?

Political analysts and Congress insiders suggest the party is building a sustained farm-distress campaign around PMFBY's absence, targeting BJP's rural base ahead of the 2027 Gujarat assembly elections, according to party-level chatter reported in political circles.