The Congress on Monday accused the Modi Government of being anti-farmer saying it wants a “kisan-mukt Bharat” alluding to the BJP’s oft-repeated assertion about having a “Congress-mukt Bharat”. The party also attacked the Shivraj Singh Chouhan dispensation in Madhya Pradesh over farmers’ stir and deaths.
Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia said the BJP rode to power in 2014 promising to give farmers a price for their yield which would be 50 per cent more than the production cost. The Minimum Support Price (MSP), however, has been witnessing a decline, he said.
Scindia, one of the Congress’ tallest leaders from MP, targeted Chouhan over the death of five farmers in police firing during their protests in Mandsaur and questioned his “reluctance” behind not waiving the loans of the farmers of the state when its neighbours, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, had announced it. But at the same time, he parried questions on whether the Congress Governments in Karnataka, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh would also come up with a loan waiver plan.
He reiterated the demand to register an FIR against police officer “guilty of murdering” six farmers in Mandsaur.
Scindia also questioned the Centre’s reluctance to not support the States to waive loans of farmers when they can write-off debts of the “corporates”.
He said by “abdicating” itself from this responsibility, the Modi Government was becoming a “mute spectator” at the time when farmers were committing suicide.
“The BJP Government came to power in 2014 by promising to give 50 per cent as against the cost incurred during the production of the yield. But the MSP for crops is not increasing. This is because there is a gap between assurances and acts of the Government. This is an anti-farmers Government who wants a ‘kisan mukt bharat’ (farmers free India),” the Congress leader told a Press conference here.
He claimed that the MSP rose by 150 per cent from 2004-2013 while the MSP has not increased even by 12 per cent in the first three years of the Modi Government.
In the last three-years of the UPA rule, agriculture sector grew by 4 per cent while in the first three-years of the NDA rule, it has snail-paced and grew by only 1.7 per cent, he said.