Hundreds of Congress workers held a demonstration at Parliament House on Monday against the “anti-farmer” Bills passed by Rajya Sabha despite the strident objection by opposition parties.
The party workers led by Congress Delhi unit president Anil Kumar marched towards the Parliament from Ambedkar International Bhawan, shouting anti-BJP slogans. Delhi Police detained the protestors at Mandir Marg Police Station.
Kumar said that the Modi Government is foisting anti-farmer bills on the cultivators that will further destroy the farmers who are already reeling under tremendous financial stress due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The centre has crushed the voice of the farmers with the passage of the bills in a dictatorial manner in Parliament without even considering the opinions of the main opposition party and others,” he said. He said that the Modi Government has snatched away the farmers’ freedom to sell their products at competitive prices, with a ‘Minimum Support Price’ (MSP) assured and to give the private players a free run.
Kumar said that the Delhi Congress will continue to forcefully raise the voice of the farmers till the anti-farmer bills are withdrawn. “Ever since the Modi Government came to power at the Centre, its one-point agenda has been to help its rich friends fatten their pockets at the cost of the poor. The Congress will not be mute spectators to such anti-people moves by the BJP Government,” he said.
The Congress president wondered why the Aam Aadmi Party Government was keeping a loud silence on the anti-farmer bills. “Only “six farmers have benefited from AAP’s much-touted plan to increase MSP. The farmers of Delhi say that they are being forced to sell their wheat at prices lower than even the MSP of the Central and this is in stark contrast to the announcements made by the Arvind Government last year when it had announced the “Mukhyamantri Kisan Mitra Yojna”. Under this scheme, around 20,000 farmers in Delhi were to benefit from MSP which was higher than that set by the Centre, but the Delhi farmers never really benefited from this scheme,” he added.