Ex-minister says Congress, AAP misleading farmers

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, July 2

In a hard-hitting statement, the state unit of the BJP has alleged that the Congress and AAP were misleading farmers and all three ordinances brought in by the Narendra Modi-led Central Government were made taking cognisance of the Swaminathan Committee report.

Dubbing recent statements of Congress state president Sunil Jakhar and AAP’s Bhagwant Mann as “fabricated and malicious”, former Cabinet minister Madan Mohan Mittal said here today that the Central Government under the leadership of Modi was committed to uplift the economic condition of the agriculture sector.

“We want to remind that the Congress was in rule for 10 years and the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not bother to implement the Swaminathan report on agriculture. The BJP has taken considerations and suggestions of the long-forgotten report and tried its best to come up with plans to address the duress in the agrarian sector,” he said.

Mittal said it was ironic that the Congress, which was harping against the “pro-farmer” ordinance, is actually guilty of letting the Pepsi company loot and harass farmers of the state during its previous regime.

“Unfortunately, the Congress and the AAP have nothing to demonstrate for what they have done for the agriculture sector and now, they are in a desperate situation and are misleading the farmers,” he said.

He said after 73 years of country’s independence, the Central Government had given the farmers the right to sell their produce to the highest bidder in the market.

While the Agriculture Minister had repeatedly gone on record that the MSP would not be discontinued and farmers need not worry that their crops would not get buyers.

Mittal said: “The marketing committees would also function like in the past and we promise farmers of the state that the BJP would stand committed to protect agriculture of this proud state, which has made the country surplus in food.”