AAP to start stir for farm loan waivers
Kejriwal says Modi govt favours businessman and has stabbed farmers in the back; demands white paper on agrarian crisis
NEW DELHI: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal announced on Saturday that his party would launch an agitation demanding loan waivers for farmers and a white paper from the Centre on the farm crisis.
Addressing the farmers in the capital, the Delhi chief minister launched a scathing attack on the Narendra Modi government over the ongoing farmers’ agitations in different parts of the country.
“The BJP has stabbed farmers in the back by seeking their votes on the promise that they will implement the MS Swaminathan Commission report but it later submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying it is not feasible,” Kejriwal said while addressing the concluding session of a day-long convention of farmers from 20 states across the country.
Starting July 15, AAP will organise agitations in 20 states culminating with a protest at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar in on October 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birthday.
“Neither the soldier nor the farmer is happy under the BJP…People used to think the Congress government is for the rich so they voted the BJP to power. But both have the same character. They take votes from the farmers and money from the rich,” Kejriwal said, demanding that the recommendations of the MS Swaminathan Commission be implemented.
Among other measures, the Commission had suggested that the minimum support price for agricultural produce be fixed at 50% above the input costs incurred by farmers.
“A farmer who has to repay ₹2 lakh commits suicide but if a businessman owes ₹9,000 crore, the government sneaks him out in the dead of the night and sends him off to London,” Kejriwal said, in a veiled reference to liquor baron Vijay Mallya’s escape to the United Kingdom after he failed to repay loans worth crores.