You stood with AAP, why blame BJP for police action against farmers: Shivraj to Opposition
Replying to a debate in the Lok Sabha on the demands for grants of the agriculture ministry, the minister said the opposition tried to paint the BJP in poor light in addressing the issues raised by the farmers but failed miserably. He listed a number of initiatives, including access to credit and crop insurance, taken by the central government for the farm sector and asserted that every effort would be made to ensure farmers’ welfare
Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday hit back at the opposition parties for accusing the BJP of ignoring farmers’ interests and said it was the AAP government in Punjab which evicted the farmers agitating at the state’s border with Haryana.
Replying to a debate in the Lok Sabha on the demands for grants of the agriculture ministry, the minister said the opposition tried to paint the BJP in poor light in addressing the issues raised by the farmers but failed miserably. He listed a number of initiatives, including access to credit and crop insurance, taken by the central government for the farm sector and asserted that every effort would be made to ensure farmers’ welfare.
“They dug up a mountain only to find a dead rat,” Chouhan said, contending that the opposition’s attempts to portray the BJP as anti-farmer had come a cropper. “Have we been friends with AAP? You were walking arm-in-arm till the Lok Sabha elections. You were together and you are accusing us,” Chouhan said, referring to the eviction of the agitating farmers by the Punjab government earlier this week.
Participating in the debate, opposition members such as Charanjit Singh Channi and Jai Prakash (both Congress) and Dharmendra Yadav (Samajwadi Party) accused the BJP-led central government of betraying farmers and claimed that it had failed to fulfil its promise on minimum support price (MSP) and was suppressing the ongoing farmers’ agitation.
Their comments came after the Punjab Police on Wednesday detained several farmer leaders, including Sarwan Singh Pandher and Jagjit Singh Dallewal, as they were returning from a meeting with a central ministerial delegation led by Chouhan in Chandigarh.
Chouhan said the previous Congress-led government made excuses for not implementing the Swaminathan Commission report that recommended fixing MSP for farm produce after calculating 50% profit for farmers over the cost of production.
Waving a cabinet note of the agriculture ministry under the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, Chouhan said the then Union ministers Kantilal Bhuria, Sharad Pawar and KV Thomas were not in favour of implementing the recommendations on MSP for farm produce.
Chouhan said foodgrain production was 265.05 million tonnes in 2013-14 when the UPA was in power, increasing to 330.92 million tonnes under the government led by Modi.
