Referring to the BJP’s poll manifesto for Chhattisgarh, All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Mukul Wasnik said that the wordings of the BJP manifesto were full of deception and fraud.
Quoting Wasnik, a Press statement issued by the Chhattisgarh unit of the party here on Sunday, said that in the manifesto issued for 2013 Assembly election by the BJP, it has been mentioned that the initiative would be taken to give minimum support price of paddy at Rs 2,100 per quintal, whereas, in the Congress manifesto declared that paddy would be purchased from the farmers at a minimum support price of Rs 2,000 per quintal. The meaning of both the manifestoes is very clear.
Citing the example of the fraud of the BJP, Mukul Wasnik said that the party had said that it would take initiative with the Central Government for the 2013 Assembly elections. However, the election is going on for electing the State Government. The Congress-led Central Government had taken every step for the paddy cultivating farmers and the farmers of Chhattisgarh. The attitude of both the BJP and the Congress was different towards the paddy farmers and Chhattisgarh, he said.
Wasnik said that during the NDA rule from 1990 to 2004, the minimum support price of paddy was increased by Rs 60 (from Rs 490 to Rs 550) only, but in the UPA-I rule from 2004-2009 Rs 450 had been increased in five years. In the UPA-II rule, the Congress Government has increased Rs 430 per quintal minimum support price of paddy from Rs 900 to Rs 1,330 in four years. On these increases, the BJP should have told the farmers that what it has to say about the Rs 60 increase in its five-year rule, he added.
Wasnik said that these figures were the living proof of the BJP’s anti-farmer and anti-paddy attitude. The BJP has no right on a single vote of paddy farmers of Chhattisgarh. The BJP Government in Chhattisgarh has played fraud with the farmers, which, in the 2008 Assembly election had said that it would give Rs 270 per quintal paddy bonus to farmers, but did not. The BJP says something and does something else, he said.
In the election manifesto of 2008, the BJP had said to give Rs 270 paddy bonus and in 2013 manifesto, it has declared to give Rs 300 bonus. The BJP has always played fraud with the farmers, Wasnik said.