Ready for talks with farmers, says Piyush Goyal

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, July 30

Farmers’ issues resonated inside and outside Parliament on Tuesday with the government inviting protesting farmers for talks, announcing plans for subsidies on natural farming and accusing opposition Congress of shedding crocodile tears for agriculturists without doing anything for them.

Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal, who was an interlocutor during the farmers’ agitation, said the doors of the government were always open for farmers and invited the protesters sitting at Shambhu border for talks.

“Our doors are always open. We welcome farmers for discussions. I hope they will accept our call,” Goyal told The Tribune when asked if a solution was possible to the festering issue with farmers continuing to agitate on the Haryana-Punjab border for a statutory MSP.

Inside Parliament, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan both flagged what they described as “Congress hypocrisy on the MSP issue”.

The ministers cited a 2007 UPA Cabinet note that rejected the MS Swaminathan Commission’s recommendation for the MSP to be at 50 per cent more than the weighted average cost of production.

Slamming the Congress for “shedding crocodile tears for farmers while giving them noting”, Sitharaman, in her reply to the Budget discussions in the Lok Sabha, quoted the 2007 Congress-led government’s Cabinet note which said, “The MSP is recommended by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices on objective criteria considering the variety of factors involved. Therefore, setting an increase of at least 50 per cent on the cost may cause distortion in the market.”

The Swaminathan report, presented in 2006 under a Congress regime, was rejected citing its potential to distort markets, the FM said, adding in the 2024-25 Budget, allocation for agriculture was five times (Rs 1.23 lakh crore) over Rs 21,934 crore in the 2013-14 Budget.

The MSP issue also surfaced in the Question Hour with Shivraj Chouhan pledging commitment to farmer welfare and declaring that the Centre was seriously mulling a subsidy scheme for those who choose natural farming.

Answering a query by Congress’ Rohtak MP Deepender Singh Hooda, Chouhan said then UPA ministers, including Sharad Pawar, had refused to even accept the Swaminathan Commission recommendation on the MSP.

“Inkey haathi ke daant khaaney ke aur dikhane ke aur hain…,” Chouhan said, adding: “Your government had refused to give cost plus 50 per cent as MSP. You have backstabbed the farmers.”

Earlier, speaking to The Tribune, Goyal termed the group of farmers protesting at Shambhu borders as “small”, and said most farmers were with PM Narendra Modi, “else we could never have come back for a third term with such an outpouring of support.”