New Delhi, Dec 6 (UNI) The Congress on Friday demanded that the law on legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP) on various crops be brought in and passed during the current session of the Parliament.
The party also condemned the blocking of way for farmers who were peacefully marching towards Delhi but were being prevented and subjected to lathicharge and tear gas.
Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters here, Congress general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala demanded that instead of being lashed with lathis, the farmers should be allowed to come to Delhi and urged the Prime Minister to spare time and meet them.
He said that the farmers were only demanding what had been promised to them by the Prime Minister after their year-long protest at Delhi borders.
Condemning the lathicharge on the farmers, Surjewala warned against pushing the farmers towards Manipur like situation. He said, they are not terrorists, naxalites or criminals but farmers who want to meet their Prime Minister to put forth their genuine demands.
Surjewala also criticised the Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan for lying in the Parliament.
He alleged that Chouhan spoke five lies in the Parliament today. He said, the Agriculture Minister claimed that Modi govt purchases all crops on MSP. He said, it was the biggest lie as the government had itself admitted earlier that only one percent crops were purchased on MSP.
Referring to the Minister’s claim that farmers were being given MSP as per 50 percent additional benefit on input costs, he said, the same government had said it in Supreme Court that if MSP is provided at 50 percent benefit over the input costs, it will lead to market distortion.
Disputing the claims that the BJP government was providing 100 and 200 percent above the input costs, Surjewala pointed out the BJP ruled states had given it in writing to the Agriculture Products Cost Commission that the MSP was far less than even the input costs.
About minister’s claims that BJP had increased MSP by 100 percent, he quoted the MSP of previous years to blast his (minister’s) lies.
On Soyabean, the senior Congress leader said it was selling at far lesser price than the MSP of Rs 4,892 per quintal in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. He said farmers were waiting for Prime Minister Modi to fulfil his election promise in Maharashtra that it will be purchased for Rs 6,000 per quintal.
Surjewala also said that the minister had avoided a question on the legal guarantee of the MSP and refused loan waiver for farmers.
He asked, if the corporates can be provided tax relief to the tune of Rs 3 lakh crores and 17 lakh crores of corporate loans can be waived off, why can’t government waive off Rs 2-3 lakh crores of farmers’ loans.
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