To strengthen its bases in this biggest state, Congress kicked off its agitation over the farmers and youth issues against the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) governments both at the Centre as well as in the State with state president Raj Babbar holding a chaupal and interacted with the people in Aligarh on Thursday.
The agitation comes in the wake of the Mandsaur farmer issue where several were killed in police firing. State Congress president had already asked all the district presidents of the state to be prepared to launch a massive and decisive agitation against the Yogi Adityanath government in UP on its failure to provide any benefit to the farmers and youths.
In its first such agitation in Aligarh on Thursday, Babbar interacted with the farmers and youths and questioned whether this BJP government had done anything for them in which everyone replied in negative. He said that the unemployment percentage which was around 3.5 per cent during the UPA regime has crossed 5 per cent during this NDA government besides the act of the Narendra Modi government is totally anti-farmer.
“The farmers are agitating and holding protest against the governments as they are feeling the pinch due to the anti-farmers approach while the government was making fake promises to provide relief on their farm loan or other sops,” Babbar said while the farmers too raised the issue of lack of minimum price of their produce and denial of farm loan waiver to maximum agriculturists. Babbar was interacting with the farmers and youths during Party’s ‘Haq Mango Abhiyan- Na Karz Mafi, na rojgar ka mauka, prachand bahumat, phir bhi prachand dhoka’ (no loan waiver, no jobs; a massive betrayal after a massive mandate) campaign started on Thursday. He said that when the farmers are raising their genuine demand, the BJP governments are crushing them with bullets which is barbaric. “Congress is always with the farmers and would continue to fight for their cause,” he further added.
State Congress spokesperson Amarnath Agarwal said in lucknow that the agitation was totally successful and the farmers too came in large number to register their grievances. He said that the farmers informed that against the cost of Rs 700 to Rs 100 per quintal of potato, government is just giving them Rs 450 and that too of top quality produce. Similarly the farmers said that since the BJP government came to power, they were not getting even the price incurred on producing any crop of vegetables and were forced to sell it off. Recently in the Rabi season, the purchase centers set up by the government refused to buy their crops directly thus they were forced to dispose it off to the middlemen.
Earlier before the assembly elections last year, Congress led by party vice-president Rahul Gandhi organised ‘ Khat Sabhas’ to raise issues of the farmers which got good response but later the Party allied with the Samajwadi Party and thus faced a humiliating defeat in the elections. With the launch of the agitation in Aligarh, Babbar will hold similar agitation programme in Agra on Friday, in Ghaziabad on Saturday, in lucknow on June 19, in Unnao on June 20 and in Barabanki on June 21.