Had it not been for the farmers’ stir ahead of elections in multiple states, the Centre would not have taken back the contentious farm laws, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Friday as she accused the BJP of working only for its “corporate friends”. Addressing party’s virtual rally for Uttar Pradesh, the Congress general secretary hit out at the BJP as well as Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party for indulging in politics of caste and communalism instead of development issues.
She said farmers are faced with multiple issues like high power bills, shortage of fertilizers, inadequate price of crops or stray animals ruining farms but the BJP-led government failed to address those. She said Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently claimed that thousands of people in Uttar Pradesh have become “lakhpati” but when she travelled around villages and districts she found more people have got pushed into poverty. “The BJP’s politics is only for its big corporate friends. Their policies, politics and media are all working for their friends,” Vadra alleged during the ‘Congress Pratigya Virtual Maharally’.
“You must have seen how they tried to bring those farm laws. Had the farmers not protested for one year and if elections were not scheduled at the end of that protest, I can say this with surety that there would have been no change,” she said. “Modi ji would not have come in front of you all with fake teas and apologized for those laws had it not been for the elections,” she alleged.
Farmers from Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana etc protested for over a year but there was no one listened to them while the farmers kept saying the laws were not in their favour, she said. “But the BJP government maintained the laws were pro-farmer. In reality the laws were a conspiracy to hand over the benefits of farmers’ hardwork to the corporate. You all protested and that is why the conspiracy stopped,” the Congress leader claimed.
The farmers’ protest took place from November 2020 till December 2021 over withdrawal of three contentious farm laws and demand for legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP) of crops. Modi had in November announced rolling back the three farm laws. Vadra meanwhile also slammed the BJP-led Centre for selling PSUs, which she said were the largest creator of jobs in the country and more than the jobs generated by a few corporate.
During the virtual rally, attended by Congress workers from across the state, Vadra lashed out at the BJP-led Uttar Pradesh government over issues of women safety and unemployment in the state. “Whether BJP, SP or BSP, they all are playing the same game. When they come for your votes, they talk about sectarian and religious issues. They do not talk about generating job opportunities, women safety, women empowerment, safety of Dalits, or checking inflation,” she said.
The elections to the 403 assembly seats are being held in seven phases this time. The polls for the first two phases were held on February 10 and 14. Results will be announced on March 7.
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