Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Sunday farmers should not beg for their rights and should ask for their dues from the government firmly. “It is time to take the movement that started at the Delhi borders to villages,” she said while addressing a kisan panchayat organised by the Congress in Kaili village of Sardhana tehsil in Meerut.
Also read: Farmers’ protests | Farmers mark ‘century’ of protest against farm laws
This was her fifth panchayat in western Uttar Pradesh in the last one month.
Promising to fight for the farmers’ cause till her last breath, Ms. Vadra, who arrived at the meeting on a tractor, said, whenever a farmer would be in problem, the Congress would stand by him. “For us, it is not the politics of vote. We are indebted to you as you are the soul of the country. You have made us. Your fight is my fight, don’t lose confidence. It has been 100 days but we would be with you for 100 weeks, 100 years,” she said.
Ms. Vadra said like the colonial government, the BJP government had been exploiting farmers. “If the farm laws are good for farmers, why are lakhs of farmers protesting at the Delhi borders despite all odds?” She reiterated that the contentious farm laws were against the interests of farmers and that they would lead to a gradual closure of government-run mandis . “They would provide an opportunity for corporates to hoard and diminish the MSP regime,” she said.
Taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, she said he was more concerned about the interests of his corporate friends than the farmers. “He tours different parts of the world but has no time to visit farmers protesting at the Delhi borders. It shows his disrespect for farmers,” she said.
