The Former Deputy Speaker of Punjab Vidhan Sabha and senior Congress leader Bir Devinder Singh on Sunday said that Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan’s statement, predicating the causes of farmers’ suicides such as “failed love affairs, impotency and dowry” was “not only derogatory in spirit, but it lacks substance also”.
Terming the statement as “highly preposterous”, he said that it was an attempt to abuse the entire farming community.“The Union Minister, with his diabolical statement, has rubbed the salt on the unhealed wounds of the Indian farmers. Therefore, we demand public apology from the Minister, and else Prime Minister Narendra Modi must dismiss him from his Council of Minister and refer him to some premier health institution dealing with mental sickness, for immediate psychiatric counselling,” he said.
Singh said: “The serious problem of the farmers’ suicide is linked with hapless economic conditions the farmers are confronted with, that impose severe psychic gloominess which impair his thought process, attitude and cerebration. Seeing no hope for survival, he is ultimately driven to commit suicide.”
“I am sure Radha Mohan has not yet studied Dr MS Swaminathan Committee report carefully in right earnest or his mental calibre failed to grasp the comprehensiveness of the report. Dr Swaminathan Committee has examined all the facet of agrarian distress, so intelligibly with intense precision, so that India does not require appointing any other committee or commission to examine the same issue in near future,” he added.