Taking a potshot at Home Minister Amit Shah, the Congress said he can travel 1,200 km from Delhi to Hyderabad to campaign for the municipal polls but cannot travel 15 km to the Delhi border to meet the agitating farmers . It also accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being obdurate in the face of the protests from lakhs of farmers.
In Sunday’s episode of Mann ki Baat , Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the three agricultural laws. Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi in a tweet in Hindi asked how a fair dialogue is possible with a government which has a pre-decided stance of supporting the three laws. “The promise was to double the income of the farmers — the Modi government did increase the income but that of Adani-Ambani!”
The Congress demanded an apology from Mr. Modi and immediate withdrawal of the farm laws.
“Prime Minister’s obduracy, Prime Minister’s arrogance, Prime Minister’s rigidity in dealing with 62 crore farmers and farm labourers of India is writ large by his insistence today in the Mann ki Baat that the three anti-farmer, anti-agriculture laws forcibly passed in an illegal and unconstitutional fashion by Parliament are correct,” Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said. Mr. Modi’s comment, when lakhs of farmers are sitting all around Delhi demanding their withdrawal, shows that the government is drunk with power and he does not care, Mr. Surejwala said.
“If the Home Minister of India has time to travel 1,200 kilometres to address a public meeting in Hyderabad, why does Shri Amit Shah not have time to go 15 kilometres to the border of Delhi and speak to the agitating farmers? Why is it that the Agriculture Minister has taken out a date of 3rd December before which no conversation can be held? Have they consulted an astrologer? What is the sanctity of it?” he asked.
He also pointed out that the BJP-led Manohar Lal government in Haryana has lodged 12,000 FIRs equating them with ‘terrorists’. These criminal charges should be withdrawn at the earliest. The party has been alleging that the three laws rob the farmers of the protective cover provided by the Minimum Support Price mechanism. Mr. Surjewala said, “If the Agricultural Produce Market Committees are shut, who will buy the produce at MSP?”
