Hours after Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath was sworn in as the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh on Monday, he signed the documents related to the farm loan waiver that his party had promised voters. Farmers’ loans amounting to up to Rs 2 lakh will be waived, News18 quoted an unidentified official as saying.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi, during the election campaigning ahead of the Assembly polls, had said the farm loan waiver process will start as soon as the government is formed. He had, however, said the waiver was not the only solution. “The solution for this is not easy, it is complex but we will find a solution,” Gandhi had said.

Farmers across the country had staged a massive protest in June to demand fair prices for their produce and a loan waiver from the Bharatiya Janata Party government. On June 6 last year, six farmers died during police firing in Madhya Pradesh’s Mandsaur district.

Nath succeeds Shivraj Singh Chouhan of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which was in power for 15 years. The Congress emerged the single-largest party with 114 seats, while the BJP got 109 – both parties were short of the majority mark of 116. With outside support, the Congress has 121 MLAs in the state.