Former Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar on Saturday said that supporters of the ruling party at the Centre were behind the violence at Red Fort in Delhi on January 26 .
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“The main feature of the farmers’ agitation against these three farm laws is that it has been peaceful right from day one,” said Mr. Pawar, addressing a public meeting at Solapur district in western Maharashtra.
The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief said that not even a lathi charge had to be ordered on the peaceful agitation. “It [violence] happened once. But when we went in to detail, we were told that no farmer was involved in that [violence]. Those who were involved in that was a group of people who wanted to defame the farmers’ agitation and the ruling party was behind this,” he said.
This is the first time that any major Opposition leader has directly attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Central government over the violence that erupted on January 26 rally organised by farmers.
Extending support to farmers, Mr. Pawar said that one of their major demands was to have legal provision for minimum support price (MSP) for their produce. “They are ready to wait as long as it takes. Farmer families come there in huge numbers. The only thing they demand is the price for their crop. Even though the Centre claims that it is working to find a solution, in reality nothing seems to be happening,” he said.
“An MP spoke in Parliament and said that I was handling Agriculture Ministry for 10 years but never did farmers have to protest in such manner. In the government of Manmohan Singh, the government stood firmly with farmers. Today, they [the government] have gone away from this. Sooner or later there will have to be change in the present condition,” he added.
