The Tribune Exclusive: MSP guarantee no remedy for Punjab farmer woes: Jakhar

As farm union leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal’s indefinite fast continued to dominate headlines, Punjab BJP chief Sunil Jakhar on Saturday questioned the benefits of a legal MSP regime for Punjab farmers and demanded a debate on the issue in the state Assembly.

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Jakhar said the Punjab Government should convene an emergency Assembly session in the wake of Dallewal’s deteriorating health and raise awareness among all about the issue at hand.

“The debate must highlight for everyone, including the agitating farmers, the pros and cons of the demand for a legal MSP guarantee in the context of Punjab. It must clarify why the farm unions that backed the 2020-21 agitation are not on board this time. The traders and industrialists who are at the receiving end of the ongoing agitations also deserve some answers,” Jakhar told The Tribune in an exclusive interview.

The legal MSP regime has been the core demand of farmer leader Dallewal, fasting at Khanauri since November 26, and another group of farmers protesting at Shambhu since February 13 last year. Himself a farmer, Jakhar said the MSP guarantee was not a surety of income enhancement, which the farmers of Punjab needed. He said the guarantee might turn out to be a case of “remedy being worse than the disease in Punjab’s context”.

“The MSP guarantee is not a solution to the problems being faced by Punjab farmers. It will be like self-medicating without caring to have a grasp of the symptoms or the disease. In fact, it will be detrimental to the interests of Punjab,” Jakhar said.

He said the MSP regime was tailor-made for Punjab and Haryana and the entire wheat and paddy produced here was procured by the Centre at MSP without any per acre cap as was the case in other states.

“A national-level MSP regime would mean Punjab farmers would need to squander their special advantage they have under the present system where the entire wheat and paddy stocks are procured at MSP. In case of a pan-India legal MSP regime, the Centre would be obligated to procure crops from across states and Punjab too would come under the per acre procurement rule, which is not the case today. We should be aware of what we seek because we might just get it and then, we might regret it,” Jakhar cautioned.

The matter of such great importance for Punjab should not be accepted unilaterally without application of mind, he said, adding since the MSP guarantee was not an income surety, it would not ensure crop diversification, which the state needed urgently.

Asked about the solution, Jakhar said the farmers of Punjab were in distress and the state’s precarious groundwater situation warranted a shift from paddy to other crops to avoid an existential crisis in the farm sector.

“For this to happen, Punjab farmers need an assurance of an income at least equal to what he earns from paddy or wheat cultivation, which no other crop comes close to. That income differential can only come from financial assistance and policy intervention by the Centre and state governments,” he said.

The BJP leader also asked why the AAP government was not drafting its own agriculture policies. “You have rejected the Centre’s policy. Why don’t you have your own policy? After all, agriculture is a state subject for a reason,” said Jakhar. Striking a note of caution, he said, “The farmers of Punjab need to ask themselves what is in their best interests. Whose battle are we fighting and why?”

Asks union ministers to Engage with Dallewal

In Delhi, Punjab BJP chief Sunil Jakhar met Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal and Urban Affairs Minister ML Khattar and urged them to engage with Dallewal and appeal him to end his fast