Congress general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala on Friday accused the Central government of working on a strategy to exhaust the farmers, who are agitating against new farm laws and eventually driving them away.
Reacting to the ‘PM Kisan’ event to release funds for farmers, Mr. Surjewala said “Prime Minister Narendra Modi who attacked farmers with water cannons and lathi is today indulging in the drama of Samman Nidhi.”
At a press conference, Mr. Surjewala said that as per the 2015-16 agriculture census, a total number of 14.64 crore farmers in the country undertake cultivation on 15.78 crore hectares of land.
“The Modi government launched ‘Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana’ in December 2018 in which it was stated that ₹6,000 would be deposited in the accounts of all farmers of the country in three instalments. Under this scheme, in the year 2018-19, instead of ₹88,000 crore, only ₹6,005 crore was deposited. In the election year 2019-20 only ₹49,196 crore was deposited and in the year 2020-21 only ₹38,872 crore has been deposited till date, whereas this amount should have been ₹88,000 crores. If we multiply 14.64 crore (farmers) with ₹6000, the amount comes to ₹87,913 crore [per year],” he said.
“Now today, the Prime Minister, by transferring ₹18,000 crore, is unsuccessfully trying to clean the stains of these three black laws,” he added.
‘Deep anguish’
“Modi ji, it is a matter of deep anguish that the farmers whom you are treating with cruelty and apathy, they are the same people, who brought you to this throne and this position of glory. Today, the BJP is branding these farmer brothers as terrorists, parasites, tukde-tukde gang, misguided gang, khalistani and misguided lot. It is shameful that the Minister of Agriculture has gone to the extent of calling them political puppets in his letters,” he said.
Mr. Surjewala said that instead of indulging in “event management”, the BJP-led government should apologise to the farmers and immediately withdraw the three laws.
Meanwhile, Punjab Cabinet Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said that Mr. Modi’s address during the PM Kisan event was a “nothing but a pack of blatant lies”.
Mr. Randhawa said that it would have been much better had the Prime Minister made an announcement to roll back the farm laws keeping in view the anguish amongst the farming community. “Be it the farmers or the reputed members of the legal fraternity, all have branded the laws as anti-farmer but the Prime Minister is still sticking to his guns and indulging in hard selling these laws as agricultural reforms,” he said in a statement.
