New Delhi: Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Friday warned that any attempt by naxals to move to the cities would be foiled and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government would keep its promise of improving the socio-economic condition of farmers.
Singh, a former agriculture minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, is increasingly been viewed as a troubleshooter by the present National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government to diffuse famer agitations that have been breaking across the country.
A latest case in point being the farmers’ protest at the gates of New Delhi earlier this week. As protesters tried to break barricades and enter the national capital, police fired tear gas shells and water cannons, drawing widespread criticism from opposition political parties and farmer bodies.
“I have worked with farmers. I am also from a small farmer family. So they trusted me and the government and dropped the protest,” Singh said at the 16th Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi.
The government is trying to tackle farm distress arising out of plunging crop prices. To stem the fall in farmers’ incomes, the government has approved a higher fair and remunerative price (FRP) for sugarcane farmers for the 2018-19 season. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to double farmers’ incomes by 2022.
Singh added that the NDA government was trying to reduce input costs and had substantially increased the minimum support price of rabi and kharif crops. Singh said his government had made a provision of Rs 14 trillion to strengthen the rural economy and added that if the farmers’ economic situation improved, India’s economy would acquire a new momentum.
In the run-up to the 2019 general elections, the NDA government has been trying to accelerate the rate of economic growth amid criticism over lack of job creation. India’s economy accelerated to a nine-quarter high at 8.2% in the first quarter of 2018-19. It has been experiencing turbulence on account of the rupee’s performance as Asia’s worst performing currency of the year, a widening current account deficit and volatile oil prices.
In response to a query over his government’s contentious crackdown on so-called urban naxals, Singh said Maoism was referred to as naxalism in common parlance and added that it had created a huge problem for the country.
Singh also referred to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as describing it as the country’s gravest internal threat and said that the present government had some success in reducing the numbers of left-wing extremism (LWE) affected districts from 126 to around 52-53. The naxal insurgency has been particularly strong in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal and Maharashtra.
“For the first time we have managed to do that. Now people are coming to cities and promoting naxalism. Nobody can be allowed to promote violence in the country,” Singh said.
This comes in the backdrop of police carrying out synchronized raids in five states at the homes of prominent civil and human rights activists and intellectuals, whom the Maharashtra police and intelligence officials have called “urban naxals” and arrested five of them in the Bhima-Koregaon violence case.
Referring to the proposed urban local body elections in Jammu and Kashmir starting 8 October, Singh said that 90% of the people in the state would be participating in the election process.
Singh added that the number of terror incidents had come down from 6,000 in 1995 to around 370 in 2017.
However, Singh admitted that the coming together of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to form a coalition government was an experiment that was not successful.
Governor’s rule was imposed in Jammu and Kashmir after the BJP withdrew support to the PDP-led coalition government, blaming chief minister Mehbooba Mufti for deteriorating law and order.
“I admit that we must improve the J&K situation. The problem is that our neighbour is not coming around,” Singh said.