Rahul Gandhi Asks Visiting PM of India to Meet Farmers
By Rakesh Raman
After meeting farmers in Punjab on Tuesday, Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi said they are in extreme distress, as their crops were destroyed by hail storms and government is not compensating them adequately.
“The crops of farmers were destroyed by hail storms, they endured it. The bonus they used to get was stopped, they endured it. They asked for fertilisers, but received lathis (police batons). And now their grains are rotting in grain markets, but are not being procured,” Rahul Gandhi said.
Opposition political parties in India are of the view that farmers are not being treated properly by Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. As a result, they are committing suicides all across India.
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Opposition parties including Congress are protesting against the ruling BJP’s amendments to the Land Bill, which aims to grab farmers’ land without their consent.
Led by Congress president Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul Gandhi, Congress had hosted a rally of farmers in New Delhi on April 19 to mobilize support against Modi’s BJP government, which is said to be working against the interests of farmers in India.
Commenting on Modi’s frequent foreign trips, Rahul Gandhi said today that PM has all the time in the world to visit foreign countries, but he has hardly any time for Indians, particularly poor farmers. He called Modi a visiting PM.
In a period of just 11 months since he became the PM, Modi has already made 13 visits at the world’s top tourist destinations.
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“Prime Minister Modi is on an India visit. He has come here for a few days. I request him to visit Punjab, speak to farmers in grain markets. Only then will he understand what they are going through,” Rahul Gandhi said.
He also questioned Modi’s ‘Make in India’ campaign, asking, “Don’t farmers ‘Make in India’? They give wheat, food to the whole country. Isn’t that ‘Make in India’?”
It’s said that Modi and his party are making amendments in the Land Bill to acquire farmers’ land and give it to big manufacturers who will start their industrial units under the ‘Make in India’ plan of Modi’s BJP.
By Rakesh Raman, the managing editor of RMN Company
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