Rahul, Kejriwal share the stage Agriculture minister defends govt’s steps for the farm sector
Support farmers who are demanding better prices, loan waiver
NEW DELHI: The ‘Kisan Mukti March’ on Friday brought Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party on the same platform, as leaders from 23 opposition parties rallied behind farmers from several states, pledging unstinted support to their demands.
An estimated 15,000 farmers, gathered in the Ramlila Maidan in the national capital since Thursday, marched about 3km to Parliament Street, skirting the outer periphery of Connaught Place, the central commercial hub.
The two principal demands of the protesting farmers are higher prices for their produce and loan waivers to alleviate hardships. The protesters, many of them waving red, yellow and green flags, also want the passage of two farmer-oriented private member’s bills endorsed by 23 Opposition parties, in a special session of Parliament. The march was organised under the banner of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), an umbrella body of about 200 farmer organisations from across the country.
“There are leaders from other parties here. We can have different ideologies. But we are united in extending support for the cause of farmers and youths of the country,” Gandhi told the gathering from a stage opposite the Jantar Mantar monument. “We want to tell Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party]—if we have to change laws or even change the PM, we will ensure better future for farmers, no matter what you do.”
Kejriwal, who joined the rally in the middle of Gandhi’s speech and later shook hands with the Congress leader, alleged that Modi had “stabbed farmers in the back” by not fulfilling promises made to them and warned him that they would “wreak havoc” in the 2019 elections if those promises were not kept. “The Centre’s crop insurance scheme is a big scam. The insurance firms withdraw money from bank accounts without informing farmers. You [farmers] did not get any claims,” said the Delhi CM. This was perhaps the first time that the two leaders addressed a rally from the same stage.
The rally comes ahead of a crucial meeting of Opposition leaders in Delhi on December 10 to firm up a joint strategy to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, and put in place the basic contours of a Mahagathbandhan, or Grand Alliance.
Along with the controversial Rafale jets deal, opposition leaders will also raise the issues of farmers’ distress, price rise, the state of the economy, and the infighting in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the Winter session of Parliament starting December 11.
Among the other leaders who attended the rally were Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, D Raja of the Communist Party of India, Loktantrik Janata Dal’s Sharad Yadav, National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, Samajwadi Party’s Dharmedra Yadav and Trinamool Congress MP Dinesh Trivedi. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) was the only prominent opposition party that did not participate.
“Farmers of the country are suffering .... We are here to wake up the government and ask them to take steps to resolve farmers’ issues or else we will throw them out in 2019. We will support the agitation unless the [private member’s] bills are passed in Parliament,” Pawar said.
Yechury accused the BJP of pursuing divisive politics to divert the attention of farmers and the country from its governance failures. “We should rise against the BJP’S divisive politics and be united in speaking for the cause of farmers,” he said.
Trivedi, from the Trinamool Congress , the CPI(M)’S arch rival in West Bengal, echoed Yechury’s views. “We consider this gathering as our parliament. Let us pass a resolution of demands which the other Parliament has to support,” he said.
Widows of farmers from Telangana, who committed suicide after they did not get adequate compensation from the government, also joined the protest, carrying their husbands’ portraits.
“This is a historic occasion when farmers, supported by urban middle class have started speaking out. The agitation has moved beyond protests and farmers have even suggested solutions by framing two bills which are already in Parliament. Let’s pledge to not vote for the party that is not supporting us,” said Yogendra Yadav, president of Swaraj India and an AIKSCC working committee member.
“2018 is turning out to be another year of farmer incomes not seeing a material pick-up. Higher minimum support prices have done little to lift crop profitability so far. The good news is the rural non-farm side is seeing better days,” said Dharmakirti Joshi, chief economist, CRISIL Ltd. NEW DELHI: Agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh on Friday attacked the Congress for not implementing the Swaminathan Commission report, which recommended higher minimum support prices (MSPS) for farmers.
Talking to reporters, the minister defended the track record of the Modi government and measures taken by it in the farm sector, even as thousands of farmers marched through the capital’s streets to protest poor returns.
“Our government has undertaken three critical reforms,” he said, listing a national project to electronically link agricultural markets so that farmers can discover better prices, a thoroughly reformed agricultural insurance programme, and a ₹2,000 crore programme to establish 22,000 rural markets for farmers to double farmers’ income.
Food processing minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, while addressing an event organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry said the government planned to set up a non-banking financial company with an initial corpus of ₹2,000 crore to fund food processing industries as part of its effort to boost this sector and double farmers’ income.
The minister asked the industry to help farmers set up co-operatives and Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOS) so that they can access the benefits and subsidy programmes run by the government. “The central gov-
We have created 5 lakh jobs and capacity to process ₹1 lakh crore worth agriculture produce HARSIMRAT KAUR BADAL, Food processing minister
ernment can only provide increased MSP and money, but it is for the state governments to ensure that there is lifting of grain and implementation,” Badal said, referring to the Centre’s decision to fix MSP at 1.5 times the cost of production.
It is “extremely unfortunate” that farmers are not receiving the benefits of various schemes announced by the Centre, including crop insurance at a very low premium, higher MSP and a ₹6,000-crore Sampada Yojana for food processing, she added.
Badal said the food processing sector, crucial for farm incomes, had got around ₹7,000 crore worth of foreign direct investment.
However, Badal did not specify for which period.