The Congress on Monday said the agriculture sector in the current Modi regime has gone in the ICU and this widespread agri distress across the country reflects the callous attitude of the BJP.
“The farmers of the country have been mercilessly backstabbed by the callous and insensitive attitude of the BJP Government. Not only did the BJP ruled Government of Madhya Pradesh shoot dead innocent farmers who were agitating for their promised rights, but the Chief Minister of the State also indulged in a farcical token fast by wasting crores of tax payers’ money,” AICC general secretary CP Joshi said at the party Press briefing.
Joshi said that demonetisation has affected the country’s agrarian society. “It has completely destroyed farm incomes and has resulted in deep agricultural distress. Despite good monsoons and good harvest, the farmer continues to be in distress. Agriculture growth has come down to just 1.3 percent this year, compared to an average growth of 4.2 percent in the Congress led UPA regime,”he said.
The party alleged that RsNotebandi’ disaster was simply weathered by replacing cash with deferred payments, for labour, purchase of seed, fertiliser and pesticides. “Given the high weightage of agricultural products in its Consumer Price Index, the success of inflation targeting in India is predicted on what happens to food prices. And since inflation at the retail and not just the wholesale level is what’s being targeted, it inherently incentivises policy actions that depress farm price,” Joshi said.
He alleged that the Government also changed the methodology and the base year of Wholesale Price Index (WPI) in order to control Inflation and this is a known fact that BJP deliberately did not increase the MSP for farm produce-so as to keep the Inflation low.