Three days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Parliament that the Center’s three agricultural laws simply provide a “choice” to farmers, former Congress Speaker Rahul Gandhi said on Saturday those options are “hunger, unemployment and suicide”.
On February 10, Prime Minister Modi had said in Lok Sabha: “What deterioration has occurred in the facilities that (the) farmers have been enjoying? This is just another option. They are not binding … Why are you opposed to another option? These laws will not ban any existing mandis or suspend the MSP. We are just modernizing the mandis. “
Addressing a ‘Kisan Tractor Rally’ from a flatbed tractor in Ajmer, Gandhi said: “Narendra Modi says ‘I’m giving you options.’ Yes … he has given three options: first is hunger, second is unemployment and the third option is suicide ”.
On the last day of his two-day visit to Rajasthan, Gandhi arrived at the site in Roopangarh in Ajmer driving a tractor, flanked by Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and the Speaker of the State of Congress, Govind Singh Dotasra. In both Ajmer and Nagaur, Gandhi reiterated his claims about the agricultural laws.
“Narendra Modi wants all this (agricultural) business to pass into the hands of his two friends, that is the objective of these laws. But the farmers of India are saying that they are going to die, but that they will never let this happen, ”he said in Ajmer, accompanied by CM Gehlot, Dotasra, state party leader Ajay Maken and former MP CM Sachin Pilot on the platform.
“And it is not just a farmer who is speaking. Behind him is a pawn and with him a small businessman. If these Narendra Modi laws are implemented, not only farmers will suffer losses … I say this with guarantee, and I am not just saying this to farmers, but to small and medium-sized enterprises, workers and youth, listen to me. When these laws are implemented, no young Indian will get a job, “he said.
Gandhi asked people to heed his claims and said he had also warned of the consequences of the pandemic.
“In February of last year, I said that the nation will suffer immense losses. My friends in the media made fun of me, but then, in their own homes, their relatives felt bad. On demonetization, he had said that it was a robbery from the poor: they took money from his pocket and put it in the pockets of the two or three main industrialists. For GST, he had said that it is a way to kill small and medium-sized companies and rob them, which (the law) is to take their businesses and hand them over to the two or three main industrialists in India. “
“And now I’m saying that with these three laws, the biggest business is being taken from 40 percent of the population of India. And the country will suffer. Therefore, it is not only the responsibility of farmers, but of all workers, all youth, small entrepreneurs and all of India. Brothers and sisters, this agriculture business is not just an industrial business, it is Bharat Mata’s business. “
At his second rally at Makrana in Nagaur, Gandhi said it is “different from other businesses.”
Look at the automobile (industry); it’s run by Mahindra, by Tata: one, two people control the whole business, “said the congressional leader, pointing to the airlines and banks to say that” four or five people who control them get all the profit. But the agricultural business is such that nobody controls it. It is perhaps the only business controlled by 40% of the inhabitants of India. “
On his request in Lok Sabha asking for two minutes of silence for “200 martyred farmers”, he said on Saturday that “the Spokesperson told me to request it in writing, so I would like to tell you that I will give it in writing, that both Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha should keep two minutes of silence for the martyred farmers. “At a rally on Friday, he called it” shameful that not a single BJP deputy, not a single minister, stood for even half a minute. “
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She is a freelance blogger, writer, and speaker, and writes for various entertainment magazines.