Farmers rejected offer as they understood govt’s ‘mischief’; will provide justice to them: Congress

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Tuesday claimed that protesting farmers have rejected another “false offer” as they have understood the government’s “mischief” and asserted it is committed to providing legal guarantee of the MSP and take other necessary steps to provide justice to the tillers.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the legal guarantee for MSP will not make the Indian farmers a burden on the budget but ensure they become the drivers of GDP growth.

He claimed that “lies” are being spread that the MSP guarantee is not feasible under the government’s budget.

In a post in Hindi on X, Gandhi claimed that ever since the Congress resolved to provide legal guarantee for the Minimum Support Price (MSP), “According to CRISIL, giving MSP to farmers in 2022-23 would have resulted in an additional burden of Rs 21,000 crore on the government, which is only 0.4 per cent of the total budget,” Gandhi said in his post.

The legal guarantee for MSP will not make the Indian farmers a burden on the budget but ensure they become drivers of GDP growth, Gandhi asserted.

Meanwhile, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh in a post on X slammed a section of the media for dubbing the protesting farmers as “traitors, naxalites and Khalistanis”.

“Farmer movements are currently going on in many countries. But till now no elected government has throttled ‘democracy’ like this,” the Congress general secretary said. Ramesh further said the “injustice being done to the farmers will end soon”.

The protesting farmers have been staying put at the Shambhu and the Khanauri points on Punjab’s border with Haryana after their “Delhi Chalo” march to press the Centre for various demands, including a legal guarantee for MSP for crops, was stopped by the security forces that led to clashes last week.

Besides a legal guarantee for MSP, the farmers are demanding the implementation of the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations, pension for farmers and farm labourers, farm debt waiver, no hike in electricity tariff, withdrawal of police cases and “justice” for the victims of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence.