Hitting out at Congress the BJP national president Rajnath Singh said that senior leaders of Congress were in depression because of increase in popularity of Narendra Modi and therefore giving incoherent statements against party.
"Congress president Sonia Gandhi had called Bharatiya Janata Party as poisonous while Vice President Rahul Gandhi has calling BJP as thief. This shows the entire party is under depression and they are giving statements that are uncalled for," Singh told party workers in a condolence meeting held in lakhimpur Khiri on Tuesday.
He had gone to meet the family of a cane farmer Satyapal Singh who had committed suicide over non-payment of dues. He also gave a cheque of Rs 5 lakh to the widow of the deceased.
BJP president blamed the Centre and the UP government for the woes of cane farmers and said because of faulty policies of both these governments farmers were forced to commit suicide. "Both the governments are anti-farmers," he said.
It was a failure on the part of UP government not to start talks with the sugar mill owners at right time, he said and added: "Similarly, the central government imported sugar from Brazil despite knowing the sugar production was going to be above normal."
He said if the BJP came to power, several recommendations of Rangrajan committee would be rejected. "If the Centre accepts the recommendations the farmers will never get the right price of their produce," Singh said.
It was ironical that despite Uttar Pradesh accounted for 42 per cent of the total cane production of the country, the recovery in the state was so low. "UP government should emulate Gujarat and Madhya Pardseh governments in this regard which gave training to farmers beside introducing latest techniques to improve the recovery," he said.
Singh also came down heavily on union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde's statement that Government could probe into snooping case involving a woman in Gujarat saying when Gujarat chief minister has already announced probe by a two-member team and fixed the scope of the probe where was the need to have another enquiry.
The BJP president, however, distanced himself from the statement of Modi about debate on article 370 vis-à-vis Jammu and Kashmirsaying the party's stand on the issue was clear and it requires no debate.
The senior BJP leader and incharge of UP affairs Amit Shah, accompanying the BJP president, said that the sacrifice of the farmers would not go waste and the party would launch an agitation in the interest of the farmer community.