Modi is an arrogant king: Priyanka Gandhi
Says PM is not ready to listen to farmers
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Saturday dubbed Prime Minister Narendra Modi an ‘arrogant king’ who shuts himself in a palace to keep away from aggrieved people.
Addressing party’s third Kisan Panchayat in Muzaffarnagar, Priyanka continued to hit Modi on the issue of the contentious farm laws. “Except for our Prime Minister, the whole world is watching farmers’ agitation. Sometimes, I feel our Prime Minister is acting like an arrogant king who is surrounded by his yes men and is least bothered about what is going on in his own country,” she charged. “Since no one shows him the real picture, his arrogance has grown to a level where he laughs at the tears of farmers’ leader Rakesh Tikait and ignores the sufferings of agitating farmers,” she alleged.
“Every political leader should be indebted to people of this country, farmers in particular. But he (read PM) chooses to insult them by calling them traitors, terrorists, parasites and andolanjeevis. Delhi border is sealed like LoC. It’s nothing but his growing arrogance,” she commented.
In her entire speech, the Congress leader repeated what she had stated during the first Kisan Panchayat in Saharanpur on February 9 and then another in Bijnor on February 15.
She reiterated the three farm laws will only fill pockets of BJP’s capitalist friends and make farmers’ life miserable as it will shut mandis and finish MSP. “By not repealing these laws, the Prime Minister is insulting ‘anndata’ (farmers),” she said.
Show urgency to resolve farmers’ grievances: Captain to PM OUR BUREAU / New Delhi
Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, who skipped the virtual meeting of Niti Aayog on health ground, on Saturday urged PM Modi chairing the meeting to ensure an urgent resolution of the farmers’ agitation "to the satisfaction of the protesting farmers by addressing their grievances.”
In his speech submitted to the virtual meeting of the Aayog, he reiterated his government’s stand agriculture is a state subject and so it
should be left for the states to make the laws in the true spirit of “cooperative federalism” in the Constitution.
He pointed to the state amendments in the central laws passed by the Punjab Assembly in October.
He said any reform that affects 60% of the country’s workforce must be done only through extensive consultation with all stakeholders. He noted Punjab is a key state in the farm sector as it is in the forefront of ensuring food security to the country.
The CM urged the PM to instil confidence in the state farmers by dispelling their fear the MSP would be discontinued as per the Shanta Kumar Committee report of 2015 that had called for the FCI stop procurement of the food grains.