Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday criticised the Opposition for misleading farmers to oppose the three farm laws, claiming that these laws have not been introduced overnight, and that the Centre and state governments had detailed discussions on these reforms over the last 20 to 30 years.
“Farm Laws have not been introduced overnight. Over the last 20-30 years, central government and state governments had detailed discussions on these reforms. Agriculture experts, economists and progressive farmers have been demanding reforms,” said PM Modi while addressing farmers at the ‘Kisan Kalyan’ event in Raisen through video conferencing.
The Prime Minister said that Opposition parties were playing games to regain lost political ground by creating a web of confusion and lies. “I wish to tell all political parties that they can keep political credit. I don’t want credit. I only want the lives of Indian farmers to be easy, want their prosperity, and modernity in farming. Stop misleading them, stop confusing them,” he said.
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Taking a dig at his opponents without naming any party, the PM said that he felt that they were pained not by the improvements brought about in the agricultural laws by his government but by the fact that Modi had been able to do what they had been saying all these years but could not do.
He also listed the advantages of the new agricultural laws enacted in September. “These agrarian reform laws atone for the sins committed in the past decades by tying farmers to agricultural ‘mandis’ only. I can say with confidence that there is no reason for mistrust or room for lies in the recent agricultural reforms we have brought about.”
Referring to the problems farmers faced in the past, Modi said: “Today, there is no news about shortage of urea; farmers do not have to face batons of police to buy urea. We have worked with sincerity to remove this problem of farmers. I will like to remind farmers about the urea situation in the past. Remember, what the situation was 7-8 years ago? Whether farmers had to stand in queues overnight to buy urea or not? In many places, were there news about lathi-charge on farmers or not?”
PM Modi also hit out at the Congress, saying that the debt waiver by Congress governments was the biggest example of how farmers were cheated. “When elections were to be held in Madhya Pradesh two years ago, a loan waiver was promised within 10 days. Debts of how many farmers were waived?” he asked.
The Prime Minister also asked the farmers to seek answers from those who had been advocating these agricultural reforms intheir poll manifestos but did nothing. “If the old manifestos of all political parties are brought out, their past statements heard, and the official letters from those who earlier handled agriculture seen, then the agricultural reforms brought today are no different from theirs. My government is dedicated to the farmers and considers them as ‘annadatas’.”
“We took out the Swaminathan Committee report that was dumped in a pile of files and implemented its recommendations, gave MSP of one and a half times the input cost to farmers. These people (opposition) ensured that their governments did not have to spend much on farmers. They merely used farmers for their own politics,” the Prime Minister said.
“Today, several farmers have been given a Kisan Credit Card. Earlier, they were not available to all farmers. But we changed rules to make Kisan Credit Card available to all farmers across the country,” said PM Modi.
The PM’s statement comes at the time when farmers have been protesting on different borders of the national capital since 26 November against three newly enacted farm laws—Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.