Leader of the Opposition in the Haryana Assembly, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, on Thursday said the BJP-led Union government should not adopt a confrontationist attitude and should accept the demands of agitating farmers surrounding the new farm laws.
He said their demand was completely justified and the new agricultural laws could not be in the favour of farmers unless there was a guarantee of minimum support price for crops.
‘Spreading confusion’
“The BJP is trying to spread confusion about the committee formed under my [Hooda] leadership during the UPA government. The BJP is misleading the public by suggesting that the three new laws had been recommended by our committee. Our committee did not make any recommendations that harm the farmers,” said Mr. Hooda.
Mr. Hooda said the committee of Chief Ministers, formed under his leadership, had recommended the extension of mandis. “It said that there should not be any monopoly on the mandis and that the facility should be extended to every farmer. During our government, the mandis were expanded to ensure that there is a big farm produce market every 8-10 km radius in Haryana. Also, government procurement centres were built in large numbers and agro malls were established,” he added.
He said during the UPA regime, there was an average increase of 12 to 15 per cent in crop rates every year and rates of many crops were increased by more than 20 per cent annually. “It was also the recommendation of our committee that farmers should not bear the burden of loan interest and the interest rate for crop loans across the country was reduced from 12 per cent to 4 per cent. In 2010, no farmer or farmer organisation had raised a finger on the recommendations made by our committee as suggestions were sought from all the farmers’ organisations and the committee made its recommendations based on their suggestions,” he said at a press conference in Rohtak.
“When the present Central government brought new agricultural laws through the ordinances, it was describing it as a big reform in the interest of the farmers. But when the farmers studied it and started opposing it, the BJP has now started stating that these were based on recommendations of the previous government. Obviously, the government is stuck in the contradictions of its own words and statements,” he said.
