Slamming the Central Government for ignoring Punjab while constituting the committee for recommending Minimum Support Price (MSP) for crops, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Wednesday said that without the state’s representation, the Centre’s committee will be like a “body without soul”.
“It is a discriminatory move as the state’s farmers have been ignored because the BJP-led NDA Government does not want to give a platform to farmers of the state to air their views. Punjab's stiff opposition of the draconian farm has unnerved the Modi government,” he said adding that this dictatorial attitude is unacceptable and unwarranted as without Punjabi farmers, the committee hardly has any relevance.
The Chief Minister said that apparently, instead of aiming at farmers’ welfare, the NDA Government is trying to settle political scores with them by keeping the food growers of Punjab out of it. “MSP is the legal right of farmers and if the Union Government wants that farmers should get its benefits, the farmers of Punjab should have been included in this committee,” he said.
Mann said that without Punjabi representation, the committee, with ‘armchair economists’ at helms of affairs, will not be able to do justice with the food growers of the country in general and that of Punjab in particular.
“Due to ever increasing input costs and low returns, the state’s farmers are already reeling under huge debts. MSP needs to be fixed after due consultation with Punjabi farmers, to bail them out of the agrarian crisis,” he said adding that thus, the need of hour is that the Union Government must include Punjabi farmers in the committee so that their interests can be safeguarded.