Reiterating his strong opposition to the three bills for the reforms in agriculture sector passed by Parliament, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav said the legislations were a big conspiracy of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central government to destroy the farm sector of the country.
Akhilesh Yadav, in a statement here on Saturday, said the BJP governments in Uttar Pradesh and at the Centre had “religiously” pursued anti-farmers and anti-youth policies.
He said the BJP government was benefiting the corporate sector and was adamant on destroying the agriculture sector.
The SP chief said that after a few years, the corporate sector would rule the agriculture sector and farmers would be reduced to mere tenants on their own land.
He said with the implementation of these legislations, the system of minimum support price ensuring remunerative price to the farmers for their agriculture produce would fade away and the status of the farmers would be reduced to mere labourers.
Questioning the claims of the BJP that it was a pro-farmers party, Yadav said, “The BJP has created a new crisis for the farmers as during the pandemic, the entire nation is suffering from economic crisis and inflation is galloping and there is all-round distress.”
The SP chief said the Central government, instead of providing relief package to the farmers facing distress, had brought new laws to destroy them and deprive them of their rights.
Yadav said that ever since the BJP came to power, it had only added to the woes of the farmers.
He said that for the kharif crop, the farmers ran from pillar to post for procuring urea fertiliser and they got the farm input at much higher prices than the control rate.
Yadav said there was no let up in the crisis faced by the sugarcane farmers. “Even as the new sugarcane crushing season is about to commence, the sugar mills are yet to clear cane arrears of over Rs 15,000 crore of the last crushing season.