Former Lok Sabha member Nana Patole, who heads the Congress party’s farmer cell, announced on Monday that the party will organize a two-day padyatra at Champaran in Bihar beginning January 25.
Mr Patole, the former BJP MP from Maharashtra who now heads the Kisan Khet Mazdoor Congress, said about 15,000 farmers would gather in Delhi on January 30 at Rajghat, Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial, to press for their demands including better remuneration for crops and compensation for damage.
Rahul in Patna
He also said party president Rahul Gandhi would participate in a farmers’ rally at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan on February 3.
“Champaran is the place from where Mahatma Gandhi took on the British and from here, we will start an agitation for our farmers,” Mr. Patole told reporters at party headquarters.
“We have been repeatedly saying that the Narendra Modi-led government is taking out money from the pockets of farmers under the Prime Minister's Crop Insurance Scheme. We had demanded at least ₹15,000 per acre should be given if a farmer faces crop loss but till date the farmers have got nothing,” he said.
Farmers’ Commission
“We demanded the formation of the Farmers’ Commission but until now, the Modi government has not done anything in this regard. We also talked about providing jobs to the children of farmers but for five years, nothing happened,” the Kisan Congress chief added.
And the party clearly wants to take credit as and when those sops are announced. “Debt waiver is not our ultimate goal but the farmers are caught in a web of debt and that’s why Rahul Gandhi has been talking of farm loan waivers and the three Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan did it in 12 hours,” Mr Patole said and added that the Kisan Congress would undertake various agitation programmes across the country between January 25 and January 30.
The Congress party’s renewed pitch for farm loan waivers and package for farmers comes days ahead of the February 1 interim Budget where the government is expected to announce sops for the farm sector.