Rahul bats for farmers, says PM should also visit Punjab
Thursday, 30/04/2015
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NEW DELHI: A combative Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday kept up his attack on the government over the farm crisis, asking Prime Minister Narendra Modi to acquaint himself with the misery of farmers.
The Congress vice-president attacked the government in the Lok Sabha a day after taking a train to Punjab and visiting mandis or grain markets where anger has been mounting as farmers find it difficult to sell their produce after unseasonal rain and hailstorms battered ripe winter crops.
“Our Prime Minister is on a tour of India right now. He has come here for some days. He should go to Punjab for some time and meet the farmers and talk to them in mandis,” he said. “Farmers in mandis are crying with pain in their hearts.”
Union food processing minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, whose husband Sukhbir Singh Badal is the Punjab deputy chief minister, jumped to Modi’s defence, asking Gandhi to go to his constituency Amethi and see the plight of farmers there. She wondered where he was when farmers were facing the fury of hailstorms, apparently referring to his 53-day sabbatical.
Food minister Ram Vilas Paswan said the Congress leader was trying to become a “martyr by cutting a finger”.
Congress leaders were upbeat to see Gandhi in a new avatar: his attacks on the government that he had called a “suit-boot ki sarkar”. Since his return on April 16, Gandhi has spoken thrice in the Lok Sabha – twice on farmer issues and once on Net neutrality — besides addressing a kisan rally in Delhi.
On Thursday, he will launch a countrywide mass contact programme with a padyatra in Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region, where many debt-trapped farmers have committed suicide over the past four months.
“When there was hailstorm, the government did not help. State governments used to give bonus, farmers tolerated its nonpayment. Now their produce is not being lifted from mandis,” Gandhi said.
He also took a swipe at Modi’s Make in India. “Who contributes more than the farmers from Punjab in Make in India? Farming is also Make in India but there is no government for farmers,” he said.
DOESN’T SPARE DHANKAR
He didn’t spare Haryana agriculture minister Om Prakash Dhankar for branding farmers who committed suicide as “cowards”. “While farmers in mandis are crying, the minister is saying these farmers are cowards,” he said amid cries of “shame, shame” from Opposition benches.
