BJP president J.P. Nadda on Thursday accused the Opposition parties of seeking to politicise the issue of the farm laws by supporting those protesting against the measures. He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had the will and the courage to take bold decisions and was working for the welfare of the nation and the farmers.
Speaking at a function to mark the 51st anniversary of Tamil magazine Tughlak here, Mr. Nadda said the Opposition parties had, in fact, promised in their election manifestos that the agriculture sector would be reformed. “You [the Opposition] speak and write in [your] manifestos that reforms will be brought in, that the APMC [Agricultural Produce Market Committee] needs to go, that the Essential Commodities Act is an age-old law that needs to be amended, farming and contract farming have to be legislated..., [but] you don’t have the political will, courage to take decisions. It is Mr. Modi who takes decisions,” he said.
The BJP president said the Opposition parties were now trying to go back (on their promise) and “support the people who want to agitate”. He asked whether politics was so important that issues vital to the welfare of the nation needed to be compromised.
According to Mr. Nadda, when the western world was struggling to control the spread of COVID-19 despite having better healthcare facilities, Mr. Modi had taken a strong decision to enforce a lockdown so as to save the 1.3 billion population of the country. He said that when COVID-19 struck, the country did not have the capacity to test even 5,000 samples but now it could test 5 lakh samples.
Mr. Nadda said it was important to mainstream the BJP in Tamil Nadu, and he was confident that the party’s State unit would bring it off. He also took part in a Pongal event, ‘Namma Oor Pongal’, organised by the party at Maduravoyal.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat took part in a Pongal event at Ponniammanmedu.
