A month after the farmers’ protests on the capital’s borders, Prime Minister Narendra Modi effectively drew a line on Friday reaffirming his support for the three laws and blaming his political opponents for what he said was his attempt to ” cheat “the farmers.
His comments mark his strongest public statement against the demand that the laws be repealed. By framing it as an event attended by virtually the entire Council of Ministers, the Prime Minister indicated his determination to use his political capital to push through these laws.
Attacking the opposition for what he called its “dogali” (double talk) policy on the new farm laws, Modi said the government is ready to hold talks in the interest of farmers, but that they will be about “issues, logic and facts. “.
“… I humbly say even to those people who fiercely oppose us, I say humbly, our government is ready to speak to them in the interests of farmers, but the conversations will be about questions, logic and facts,” Modi said afterward. the release of the scheduled tranche of Rs 18,000 crore to more than 9 crore farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) scheme.
The leader of TMC and West Bengal’s chief minister, Mamata Banerjee (the Assembly elections in the state are due next year), found a special mention for the criticism in their speech.
He asked why the opposing farm laws do not speak to the interest of farmers in West Bengal, a state that has not implemented PM-KISAN.
“Today, political parties, which have been voted on by the people, are doing events and event management so that someone can take a selfie, print photos and appear on television so that their politics can continue. These have been exposed in front of the country. Why don’t you talk about the interests of West Bengal farmers? They are committed here to harass the citizens of Delhi and they are ruining the economy of the country. This is also on behalf of the farmers, ”Modi said.
More than 23 lakh farmers in West Bengal, he said, applied online to take advantage of this scheme, but the state government halted the verification process.
Referring to the Opposition charge that APMC mandis would be weakened with the implementation of the Agricultural Products Trade and Trade (Promotion and Facilitation) Law, he said: “You must have heard, they are talking about mandis and APMC. Kerala has no APMC, nor mandi … they organize programs to get attention, so they should start APMC in Kerala by organizing riots there. You have time to fool Punjab farmers, but if this system is good, why doesn’t it exist in Kerala?
“Why do they adopt a policy of dogali (double talk)? What kind of politics are they doing in which there is no logic, no facts? Make false accusations and spread rumors to scare our farmers. Sometimes naive farmers are fooled by you, ”said the Prime Minister.
“These people are not willing to accept any scale and parameter of democracy. They only see its benefits, its selfishness. Those who are playing the game carrying their flags on behalf of the farmers will now have to hear the truth… they cannot escape. They have the right to do politics in a democracy. Don’t gamble with the lives of innocent farmers, don’t gamble with their future and don’t cheat on them, “he said.
Urging farmers to “not be fooled” and “not to accept anyone’s lies”, he asked them to think only on the basis of “logic and facts”. He listed the plans initiated by his government for the welfare of farmers.
On the show, organized to mark the anniversary of Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s birth, Modi also interacted with six farmers from six states and asked them to share their experiences of contract farming, government plans and other topics.
When Gagan Pering, a farmer from the Lower Dibang Valley district of Arunachal Pradesh, said that he had formed an agricultural products organization for the production of ginger and that he had reached an agreement with a private company, the Prime Minister asked him: ” Does the company that buy ginger from you, buy you only ginger or take away the land? To this, Pering said: “The agreement is only for the purchase of products, not for the land. The land is ours and will remain ours.”
Modi told him: “You are sitting in a remote part of Arunachal Pradesh and you are confident that your land is safe, but some people are spreading misconceptions that if you sign an agreement on your products, you will also lose your land. “This was a reference to the accusations of the Opposition against the Agreement of Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) on Price Guarantee and Agricultural Services Law.
Clearly, the prime minister’s message on Friday contrasts with the Center’s downgrade of the land acquisition ordinance in 2015 amid milder protests.
The signal that the government will not give in to the demand for repeal comes in the context of ongoing negotiations with unions on draft standards under the four labor codes recently submitted by the government.
As with the CAA, the Prime Minister mocked the Opposition for its electoral debacle, accusing it of instigating protests to advance its political agenda.
This manual, which tries to delegitimize the protests and attribute an agenda to them, is not new for this Government. The fact that the BJP let its longtime ally, the Akali Dal, walk away from the NDA over this and appear unfazed by the pressure on his state government in Haryana reinforces its political resolve on farm laws.
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