Modi govt wants to make a ‘kisan-mukt bharat’: Scindia

New Delhi, June 19

The Congress on Monday attacked the Centre and the Shivraj Singh Chauhan dispensation in Madhya Pradesh over farmers’ stir, saying the Narendra Modi government wants a ‘kisan-mukt bharat’ (India free of farmers).

Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia said the BJP rode to power in 2014 promising to give farmers a price for their yield which would be 50 per cent more than the production cost.

The Minimum Support Price (MSP), however, has been witnessing a decline, he said.

Scindia, targeting the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister over the death of five farmers in police firing during their protests in Mandsaur, questioned his “reluctance” behind not waiving the loans of the farmers of the state when its neighbours, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh, had announced it.

He also reiterated the demand to register an FIR against police officer “guilty of murdering” six farmers in Mandsaur.

Scindia, who hails from Madhya Pradesh, also questioned the Centre’s reluctance to not support the states to waive loans of farmers when they can write-off debts of the “corporates”.

He said by “abdicating” itself from this responsibility, the Modi government was becoming a “mute spectator” at the time when farmers were committing suicide.

“The BJP government came to power in 2014 by promising to give 50 per cent as against the cost incurred during the production of the yield. But the MSP for crops is not increasing.

“This is because there is a gap between assurances and acts of the government. This is an anti-farmers government who wants a ‘kisan-mukt bharat’,” the Congress leader told a press conference here.

He claimed that the MSP rose by 150 per cent from 2004- 2013 while the MSP has not increased even by 12 per cent in the first three years of the Modi government.

“In the last three-years of the UPA rule, agriculture sector grew by 4 per cent while in the first three-years of the NDA rule, it has snailed by only 1.7 per cent.” The Congress leader, however, parried questions on whether the Congress government in Karnataka, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh would also come up with a loan waiver plan. PTI