New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday slammed the narrative against his government on the farmers’ issue as he warned the country against the new FDI that now stands for “Foreign Destructive Ideology”. He said that the country should not subscribe to this kind of people as they have the mentality to jump into each protest, whether it be farmers’ or lawyers’ or students’.

The Prime Minister was responding to the discussion on President’s address. The Motion of Thanks was passed without any amendments.

Modi said, “A new type of people have propped up in the country. They are “Andolan jivi”. Protest is their life-source and they can be spotted in each protest site, be it on anything. They cannot live without protest, we have to identify them and protect our nation from them.”

Modi said they instigate and then watch from the sidelines. He said that each state government is feeling the same brunt as these people are parasites for the country.

Modi’s speech came in the backdrop of continued farmers agitation at the Delhi borders that attracted international scrutiny after the Republic Day flare-up with many celebrities across the border stoking fire against the Centre’s attitude on the movement. The Prime Minister was referring to people who were supporting the agitation.

“End your protests and we will all sit together and talk. We are ready for talks and I am inviting you from this House,” PM Modi said in the Rajya Sabha, in his reply to a debate on the President’s Budget session speech.

“MSP tha, MSP hai aur MSP rahega (Minimum Support Price will remain). No one should spread misinformation,” he asserted, adding, however, that he was willing to take the brunt if it meant pushing reforms that were long overdue.

“We need to move forward, not backward. We need to give these reforms a chance,” he said.

PM also urged farmers to end their protests since November against three laws, assuring that the system of MSP or Minimum Support Prices would remain in place. He also referred to his predecessor Manmohan Singh as he derided what he called the Congress’s “U-turn” on farm reforms.

He quoted former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, commenting that “at least they (opposition) will listen to him if not me” on reforms.

“There are other rigidities because of marketing regime set up in the 1930s which prevent our farmers from selling their produce where they get the highest rate of return. It is our intention to remove all those handicaps wihich come in the way of India realizing its vast potential as one large common market’,” the PM quoted Manmohan Singh as saying, and added: “Manmohan Singh Ji had made his intentions clear, to give farmers the freedom to sell their produce, and have just one market. And we are doing it now.”

He also quipped at the Congress: “You should be proud – Manmohan Singh talked about it but Modi is having to do it now. Be proud.”

(With inputs from IANS)