Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted to destroy farmers of the country and that was why he rolled out demonetisation and scrapped import duty on wheat, alleged Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh while addressing a mammoth election rally in Charthawal area of Muzaffarnagar on Thursday. Mr. Singh said that Mr. Modi delivered good speeches but “speeches can’t replace the delivery of the promises he made.”
“Prime Minister first promised to bring the black money from abroad. After his failure to do so, he came up with demonetisation. And now on the pretext of dealing with corruption and black money he is hell bent on destroying the poor labourers and farmers of the country,” said Mr. Singh while speaking at what was the RLD’s first-ever election meeting on such a big scale in the riot-torn Muzaffarnagar where he managed to bring together leaders like NCP chief Sharad Pawar, Janata Dal (United) leaders Sharad Yadav and KC Tyagi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda.
In an attempt to unite the farmers in Muzaffarnagar which saw the division of the farming community on religious lines in the aftermath of the deadly communal riots of 2013, Mr. Singh said, “Modi says he cares for farmers but look at what he actually does. His government slashed the import duty on wheat to zero which is an anti-farmer decision. Cash crunch after the demonetisation brought further crisis in the lives of farmers. Earlier farmers were one and united but now they have been divided in the name of religion and caste.”
“Because of non-availability of cash in the banks, farmers are unable to access whatever little money they received after selling their cane. Modi government was taking decisions to trouble and harass farmers and common man from all sides,” said Mr. Singh in the meeting which was organised to show RLD's strength even as he was trying hard to strike an alliance with any of the major players in Uttar Pradesh ahead of the Assembly polls.
