BJP, TRS Governments Anti-Farmer: Rahul Gandhi

Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi accused both the BJP-led central government and the TRS government of Telangana of having failed to address the problems being faced by the farmers.

Addressing a public meeting at Wadial near Nirmal of the Adilabad district at the conclusion of his 15 km long Kisan Sandesh Yatra on Friday, Gandhi alleged that both the governments were working for a select few corporate houses while neglecting the poor and the farmers.

He specifically targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, accusing them of failing on all fronts. He said that both of them had failed to provide jobs to the unemployed youth during their one-year rules. The 'acche din' (good days) had come only for a select few people and not for the common people, he alleged.

Gandhi described KCR as "mini-Modi", and said that both Modi and mini-Modi had been cheating the people by making tall promises.

"While Modi came to power on the promise of providing better MSP to farmers, mini-Modi assured he would waive off crop loans. But they utterly failed to fulfill those promises," he said.

The Congress Vice-President said that the UPA regime had waived off crops loans of more than Rs 70,000 crores across the country. About 6.5 lakh farmers were also provided loans of nearly Rs 8 lakh crores.

Gandhi also condemned the criticism by the BJP and TRS of his padayatra. He said instead of objecting to his visit to the families of the farmers who had committed suicides, the BJP and TRS ministers and leaders should have reviewed the losses to the farmers due to the drought and, later, the unseasonal rains.

"They could have prevented the suicides by giving an assurance to the farmers that their losses would be properly compensated," he said.

The Congress leader also criticised the Land Acquisition Bill and accused the BJP-led NDA government of trying to snatch away land from farmers to benefit the corporate sector.

He reminded that the previous UPA government had passed a law wherein it was provisioned that the acquired land would be returned to the farmers if the industries or projects supposed to come up on it were not established in four years. However, the NDA's Bill did not specify the time period, and a farmer would permanently lose his land once it was acquired by the government.

He said that nearly 40% of the land acquired for the Special Economic Zones was lying unused. In addition, the central government possessed huge chunks of land in different parts of the country. Instead of using the available land, the central government was eyeing the land owned by poor farmers, he alleged.

Gandhi said that his party was ready to fight the government, both in Parliament and on the streets. He alleged that people were being misled by the slogans like "Make In India".

He also made a mention of Narendra Modi's suit which is allegedly worth about Rs 10 lakhs.

Earlier, Gandhi visited the families of farmers in the Koritkal, Laxmanchanda, Pottupally, Rachapur and Wadial villages. (INN)