New Delhi : Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief JP Nadda on Sunday accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of hypocrisy and misleading farmers who are protesting the centre’s agriculture laws.
Referring to a video of the Kerala MP recounting his conversation with a potato farmer from Uttar Pradesh, Nadda said “What magic is this ?” pointing out that Gandhi was opposing what he seemed to support earlier, that of removing middlemen and allowing farmers to sell directly to buyers.
Taking to Twitter, Nadda shared the old video of proceedings in the Lok Sabha in which Gandhi is heard saying: “Once, a farmer from UP asked me how it was possible that while he sold potatoes for Rs 2 per kilogram, his children bought packets of potato chips, with each one having chips worth one potato, for Rs 10 each.”
In the video, Rahul further said that “I asked the farmer why he thought this was happening, the farmer said it was because they were unable to sell their products directly to the factories making chips. If there was provision for us to sell our products directly, without middlemen, all profit would reach us.”
The clip shared by Nadda is from the year 2015 in which Rahul Gandhi was speaking on what prompted the Congress to undertake the ‘Amethi Food Park project’.
Sharing the video, Nadda tweeted in Hindi “What magic is this Rahul ji? Earlier, what you were advocating, you are opposing it now. You have nothing to do with anything from the country’s interest, farmers’ interest. You just have to do politics. But it is your misfortune that now your hypocrisy will not work. The people and farmers of the country have come to know your dual character.”
Congress’s Surjewala hit back at Nadda with a tweet in which he said: “before spreading lies you should know potatoes don’t have MSP.”
“We also want reforms in farm sector but the question here is about the impact the three black laws have had on farmers.” Surjewala tweeted.
The Wayanad MP had recently hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue of MSP and Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act and also urged citizens to support the protests led by farmers. On December 24, Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi, Ghulam Nabi Azad and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury visited Rashtrapati Bhavan and told him that the laws were “anti-farmer”.
The Central government led by BJP has been saying that the new farm laws, passed by Parliament in September, will be liberating for small farmers and it will benefit them. However, thousands of farmers have been protesting at Singhu border for over a month against the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.
Farmer unions have held several rounds of talks with the government. The Samyukt Kisan Morcha, a joint front of almost 40 farmer organisations, wrote a letter to the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare accepting the Centre’s offer for dialogue and proposed December 29 as the next date for the meeting. (ANI)
