New Delhi:
The Congress on Friday called on the Bharatiya Janata Party to respond proactively to protesting farmers’ demands about a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price, or MSP, and warned the government, “Do not allow the farmers of this country to face a situation like Manipur”.
The opposition party also slammed the government for taking the time out to watch a movie – on Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, members of his cabinet, and MPs attended a screening of ‘The Sabarmati Report’, a movie about the 2002 train-burning incident in Gujarat’s Godhra.
“The Modi government has time to watch movies but does not have time to listen to demands of farmers. Prime Minister Modi should talk to the farmers without delay and immediately pass a law on MSP… this is the demand of the Congress,” party leader Randeep Singh Surjewala said.
“The Congress party is with the farmers,” Mr Surjewala said, also taking the opportunity to throw a jab over the extent of security deployed to stop the farmers and the India-China border crisis
“If the three-layer security which has been put in place for the farmers in Haryana had been put in place on the Chinese border, then China would not have occupied the Indian border,” he said.
The reference to, and warning about, Manipur was stark. Nearly 300 people have been killed since ethnic violence broke out between the Meitei and Kuki communities in Manipur in May 2023.
The Congress and other opposition parties have been fiercely critical of the handling of the crisis by BJP, which is also in power in Manipur, and questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi on this issue.
The BJP has not yet responded to this round of attacks by the Congress.
The Manipur warning came on a day when a group of 101 farmers began a ‘Dilli chalo’ march to press home a list of nearly five-year-old demands, including a legal guarantee for MSP.
The march, from Shambhu on the Haryana-Punjab border, began at 1 pm but ran immediately into fortified, multi-layered police barricades across National Highway 44.
In the clashes that followed, police fired tear gas shells to disperse the protesters. Eight people were injured, and two others seriously wounded, according to farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher.
Visuals shared by news agency IANS showed chaotic scenes at a police barricade across National Highway 44. In the 73-second video white tear gas smoke enveloped protesting farmers.
As the video pans out, rolls of barbed wire can also be seen and the gassed farmers are seen pulling back. An elderly farmer, affected by the tear gas, is attended to by fellow-protesters.
Beaten back for the day, the farmers said they would not admit defeat but would give the government 24 hours to reach out to them with a proposition to address their concerns.
The farmers – lakhs of whom have been protesting since September 2020, when the Modi government passed three farm law that were severely criticised and later rolled back – also lamented the action taken against them. “Modiji cannot justify the actions against us. We are deeply hurt.”
“If our protest is allowed inside Delhi… I will ask, ‘Why are we treated as enemies?’ Punjabis and Haryanvis saved the country from hunger,” Pandher said.
Shortly before the march began, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told Parliament the Narendra Modi government is committed to purchasing farmers’ produce at MSP.
“I want to assure the House… all produce of farmers will be purchased at Minimum Support Price. This is the Modi government and (we will) fulfil Modiji’s guarantee,” Mr Chouhan said, also taking the opportunity for a dig at the Congress, referring to his “friends from the other side”.
“…they said, on record, they cannot accept the MS Swaminathan Commission recommendations… especially on paying 50 per cent more than cost price,” he said, declaring the government is already buying paddy, wheat, jowar, soyabean at 50 per cent over cost of production from three years ago.
Today’s protest was meant to press home farmers’ longstanding demands for a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price, waiver of farm loans, and protection from increased electricity tariffs.
The demand for legal backing for MSPs – which refers to a priced fixed by the government to protect farmers from a steep fall in crop prices; for example, during a bumper crop when prices plummet – a has been a core ask of protests that began in September 2020.
MSPs, however, have no legal backing, meaning the government is not obliged to buy, for example, 10 per cent of a farmer’s paddy crop at the floor price. And it is this that the farmers want changed.
