Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday allayed fears that private firms might grab farmers’ land under a new contract farming law enacted by the Centre, as he listened to success stories about benefits of the new Acts while interacting with peasants from seven states.
After releasing Rs 18,000 crore funds to 9 crore farmers under the PM-KISAN scheme, PM Modi held interaction with farmers from Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and Haryana.
In their interaction with the PM, the seven farmers shared their success stories and also highlighted the benefits of recently enacted agri-laws. They also shared their good experience of working with private players under contract farming agreements.
“Hamari sarkar kisan ke hit main unse baat karne ke liye taiyyar hai, lekin baat muddon par hogi, tarq aur tathyon par hogi (for the benefit of farmers we are always ready to talk but the discussion will be on issues, logic and facts,” he said.
Slamming the Opposition—especially the Congress, the Trinamool Congress and the Left—and accusing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of “blocking the PM-Kisan scheme in her State”, he specifically mentioned small and marginal farmers and differentiated between “politicians” and “innocent farmers” in the agitation.
“There are many ‘sachche kisan’(true farmers) in the agitation, not just politicians,” he said. The prime minister said more than 80 per cent farmers in the country are poor and marginal farmers (“more than 10 crore farmers”) who had been “left to fend for themselves all this while”.
“All those running the agitation (read opposition) were supporting previous governments which did nothing for these farmers,” he said, in a way indicating that terms on which unions are demanding negotiations are not acceptable to the Centre and that there is no going back on the three laws.
“Those rejected by people are doing event management for political survival, they are misleading innocent farmers and not allowing the dialogue to take place between the Centre and farmers…they are adding more issues to the original demand of MSP, extending it release of those jailed for violence, toll taxes etc,” he said.