NEW FARM LAWS: NADDA POSTS OLD VIDEO, TAKES A SWIPE AT RAHUL; CONG HITS BACK

NEW DELHI : Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president J P Nadda on Sunday shared an old video of Rahul Gandhi’s speech in Lok Sabha in which he seems to be advocating the need for farmers to get rid of middlemen and sell their produce directly to industry, as he accused the Congress leader of playing politics over the ongoing farmers’ protest.

”What is this magic happening Rahul ji. You are opposing now what you had advocated earlier. You have nothing to do with the country’s or farmers’ interests. You have to play politics only. But this is your bad luck that your hypocrisy will not work. People of the country and farmers have recognised your double standards,” Nadda tweeted in Hindi along with the video clip.

The Congress has backed the farmers’ protest against three agriculture-marketing laws which give cultivators an option to sell their produce directly to private players.

The Congress hit back at Nadda alleging that he was trying to mislead the farmers.

Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said that before targeting Gandhi, the BJP chief should have known there is no MSP on potatoes and asked him why the government had to import potatoes when there is enough within the country”Dear Nadda ji, before misleading the farmers, you should have known that there is no MSP on potatoes. And...we also want reforms in the agriculture sector, but the question here is the way the life of farmers has been attacked with the three black laws,” he said in a tweet in Hindi.

“You should also tell why you are importing one million tonnes of potatoes from abroad while leaving the country’s farmers,” he said, replying to Nadda’s tweet.

Agitating farmers have argued that these laws are aimed at weakening the existing government’s support for the farm sector, a charge denied by the Centre.