New Delhi
The Congress on Tuesday came out with a 20-page booklet, titled ‘Kheti ka Khun — Teen kale kanun’ (Murder of agriculture with 3 black laws), and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi who released it, along with other party leaders at the AICC headquarters, asked people not to be mistaken it is the fight by the farmers sitting on Delhi’s border, but a fight of all Indians, the entire nation.
“If agriculture is finished, the poor will not be able to get cheaper food grains from the ration shops. The budget of middle class and Aam Aadmi (common man) will be hit because an item worth Rs50 will be sold at Rs100 or Rs150. Therefore, this is a fight of every citizen of the country,” he said, releasing the broad-sized booklet at a Press conference at the AICC headquarters in Delhi.
Rahul said people should understand the farmers spending weeks at Delhi borders during the harshest winter not to protect own interests, “but to protect you and your food.”
He said the farmers are staging a "dharna" for the past 55 days and more than 70 have died, but the Modi government is playing the game of "meeting, meeting" with no solution since it is adamant on implementing the 3 anti-agriculture farm laws. It is misleading the farmers by telling them to talk to the government to tire them out.
Explaining why the government brought the laws, Rahul said, Modi’s declared slogan is “to sell out everything”. That is how his government has sold airports, railway stations, sea ports, trains and 23 government companies to the private hands and it is also preparing to gift away 46 other government companies to friends, he said.
The Gandhi dynast said the farm laws are part of that game to sell 25 lakh-crore agri trade to 3-4 industrialists. He listed how PM Modi started inflicting attacks on farmers and labourers since coming to power 6 years ago:
-- Stopped bonus over and above MSP as soon as coming to power
-- Withdrew the law of compensation at market rate for land acquisition
-- Violated promise of giving farmers cosst + 50% profit for crops
-- Refused loan waiver to the farmers
-- For the first time agri taxed by levying GST on pesticides (18%), fertilisers (5%), tractor and agri equipment (12%), and
-- Looted Rs19 lakh-crore by increasing excise duty by 820% on diesel and 258% on petrol in the past six year.
Rahul said the 3 anti-farm laws are part of that game PM Modi is playing with impunity. He said: “The last bastion that was protected by monopoly is being overrun. Three new laws will destroy Indian agriculture, by destroying mandis, by destroying essential commodities act and by ensuring no Indian farmer can go to court.”
Providing official secret information to a journalist is a "criminal act" and both the giver and the receiver will have to go to jail, Rahul said referring to the purported WhatsApp chats of Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami doing the rounds of social media. "Information was with 4-5 people. In such missions, information is not given to the pilot, it was with the Air Chief, PM, Home Minister, Defence Minister and NSA. Of the 5 people, one has given information to this person. This is a criminal act. We will have to find out who did it, and both (the giver and the receiver) will have to go to jail," he said, alleging, "This process should start, but this process will not start because the PM may have given the information."
Meanwhile on Tuesday, 4 more people appeared before the National Investigation Agency in its probe into the Sikhs For Justice case, officials said. A senior NIA official wishing not to be named said, "Today 4 more persons appeared to record their statements as witness."
BJP ACCUSES RAGA OF INSTIGATING GROWERS
BJP President Jagat Prakash Nadda and I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar separately lashed out at Rahul, accusing him of instigating the farmers as they said the Congress does not want the talks between the government and the agitating farmers' unions to succeed. In a series of tweets, Nadda accused the Congress of not increasing the MSP as its UPA government kept sitting over the Swaminathan report for years. Both Nadda and Javadekar accused Rahul of spreading lies the govt wants to shut down the mandis and asked him if the Congress manifesto in 2019 had not promised to wind up the mandis across the country. They said it is because of the anti-farmer policies of the Congress govts for decades that the farmers are still poor. They also wondered when Rahul and the Congress will stop speaking lies on China. On Rahul expressing concern about China occupying an area on the border of Arunachal and setting up a village, Nadda said it were the same pice of land that was gifted to China by none else but Jawaharlal Nehru.
