Continuing his onslaught on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government in Delhi on its first anniversary, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said only a few “powerful people were excited about what the government is doing”.
Emerging from an hour-long closed-door meeting with representatives of 18 rubber farmers’ outfits at the guest house in Aluva, near here, Mr. Gandhi said the poor, weaker, struggling people were largely unhappy with the Union government. “Farmers, labourers, and small businessmen are unhappy. As I have said many, many times before, it’s only five or six powerful people who are friends of the government who are excited about what the government is doing. The rest of India is wondering what’s happening. We will take up the issues of rubber planters, cardamom growers, fishermen, and fight for the betterment of their lot.”
Earlier, at the meeting attended among others by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president V.M. Sudheeran, and Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, the crisis in the rubber sector in the wake of steep fall in prices was discussed at length. Mr. Gandhi promised that he would raise the issue in Parliament.
Meeting soon
At his instance, Mr. Chandy would shortly convene a meeting of rubber farmers where attempts would be made to fix the minimum support price at Rs.150.
Babu Joseph, general secretary of the National Federation of Rubber Producers Societies, said the federation brought Mr. Gandhi’s attention to the fact that most schemes of the Rubber Board formulated and implemented for the benefit of small and marginal farmers were currently not funded adequately or remained withdrawn.
