Rahul cuts short Haryana tractor rally EASE RAIL ROKO: CAP TO FARMERS KHETI BACHAO YATRA
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi truncated his tractor rally in Haryana against the newly enacted farm laws. He will now be arriving for a day-long visit to the state on Tuesday instead of earlier two days.
The announcement by Gandhi’s team came hours after the Haryana government said he could bring a few people to the state and a large crowd from Punjab won’t be allowed as it could "disturb" the atmosphere. Haryana Congress president Kumari Selja said Gandhi would enter Haryana's Pehowa at 10 am from Punjab. Later, he will go to Kurukshetra, where his ' Kheti Bachao Yatra' would culminate.
Before he wound up his Punjab rallies, Gandhi addressed a gathering in Sangrur where he said PM Narendra Modi was "finishing" farmers and labourers with the three farm laws introduced recently just as he had "destroyed" small shopkeepers with demonetisation and implementation of GST.
Intensifying his attack on the Centre, he raked up China and claimed it had "dared to enter India and kill our soldiers" as Modi has "weakened" the country. "All of its policies are made for their 34 select friends," he said.
Asserting the need to improve the food procurement and Public Distribution System, Gandhi said, "There is a need to strengthen this system. More mandis need to be set up. There is a need to guarantee MSP (minimum support price), to give infrastructure to farmers, to set up silos".
He added, "Modi is not strengthening the system... If Modi gives better PDS, guarantees MSP and brings more mandis, then Ambani and Adani cannot make money."
Punjab CM Amarinder Singh on Monday urged protesting farmers to ease their ongoing ‘rail roko’ agitation and allow goods trains to pass through, in the larger interest of the state. However, he reiterated his govt’s complete support to the farmers in their fight against the Centre’s new farm laws. Different farmers' bodies had stepped up their agitation by resorting to blocking rail tracks for an indefinite period from October 1 in the state to protest the new farm legislations. Though farmers under the banner of the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee have been squatting at rail tracks in Amritsar and Ferozepur since September 24. In an appeal to the protesting farmers, the CM urged them to ease their rail blockade to ensure the state is able to meet its critical needs and ensure that the citizens, including the farming community, are not put to any serious inconvenience in the coming days.
If the BJP-led Centre succeeds in breaking the backbone of the farmers, the nation will be enslaved by industrialists like Ambani and Adani. The Modi govt is doing to India what the East India Company of the British did. — Rahul Gandhi