Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday said that the Chinese had dared to enter India and kill our soldiers because the Modi government had weakened our nation with its policies and actions, of which the Farm Laws were the latest example.
Even as Rahul termed the Centre’s Farm Laws as an attack on India’s soul, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh said his government would pass, in the Vidhan Sabha, whatever resolution/bill needed to counter their impact on the nation. Addressing public rallies in Samana (Patiala), Sangrur and Bhawanigarh on the second day of his 3-day ‘Kheti Bachao’ Yatra, Rahul accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of trying to destroy the Mandi and MSP system.
He said that the need of the hour was to strengthen the existing system and to correct the flaws in it, rather than to destroy it. Rahul said that the Modi government is doing to India what the East India Company of the British did. He added that what people buy now for Rs 10 will cost them Rs 50 under the corporate regime, and the money will go not to the farmers or labourers, but into the pockets of the corporate houses.
“If Modi does not realise the power of the farmers and the poor, we will together show him this power,” said Rahul, declaring that he was not afraid of the BJP government at the Centre. Warning the farmers that the new laws of the Centre would lead to the dismantling of the MSP and FCI system and the Mandis, said Rahul, adding that the break in the procurement chain ushered in by these farm laws will break the entire chain and farmers will become slaves of these corporates.
On the occasion, Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh said that the future of agriculture itself was at stake because of the farm laws, which the government sitting in Delhi had forced on the farmers and the states. The small farmers, constituting 70% of the farming community, would be ruined, he warned. He said that these laws will lead to the closure of the Mandis, but his government would not let the Union Government do that and will take all steps, including a Vidhan Sabha session to counter the new legislations, and challenging the Centre’s laws in Supreme Court.
Rahul and Capt Amarinder later went around the Grain Market in Samana to interact with the farmers and Arhtiyas and assured them that the Congress Party would fight for their rights. Rahul’s tractor rally on Monday started from Sangrur and traveled through Bhawanigarh, Fatehgarh Chhana, Bahmna and culminated with a public rally at the Grain Market in Samana (District Patiala).
Prominent amongst others present during the programmes included AICC general secretary Harish Rawat, PPCC chief Sunil Jakhar, former Chief Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, and Haryana Congress leader Deepender Hooda. Punjab Cabinet Ministers Brahm Mohindra, Balbir Singh Sidhu, Sadhu Singh Dharmsot, Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi and Vijay Inder Singla, Punjab Mandi Board Chairman Lal Singh, MP Gurjit Singh Aujala, MLAs Hardyal Kamboj, Madan Lal Jalalpur, Nirmal Singh, Kuljit Singh Nagra, Rajinder Singh, and Punjab Youth Congress President Brinder Dhillon were also present on the occasion.