Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday described the new farm laws as “death warrants” for farmers and gave flight to Aam Aadmi Party’s political ambition to cross the Yamuna and enter Uttar Pradesh.
Promising to control the erring sugar mills in Uttar Pradesh on the lines of power distribution companies in Delhi, Mr. Kejriwal asked a kisan panchayat in Meerut to vote for his party with the right intent.
He said farmers were in pain for 70 years because they have been cheated by different governments and parties. Now, the three farm laws have made it a matter of life and death. “The farmers have been asking for right price of their produce,” he said. Party manifestoes, he said, promise the right price of their crops but when these parties come to power, they forget about their commitment.
He said the BJP had left the Colonial government behind in tormenting the farmers. Mr. Kejriwal said farmers were sitting on the road in the cold because “these laws would reduce them to labourers on their own land. It has come down to a do or die kind of situation.”
He said that in 2014, BJP asked for votes by promising to implement the Swaminathan Committee Report. “However, within three years in power, it submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court that said minimum support price could not be 50% more than the cost of the produce. It amounts to backstabbing the farmers.”
He charged the BJP government of planning the Red Fort incident. “As a Chief Minister, I meet different people. I have been told that farmers were deliberately guided towards the Red Fort. Our farmers can’t be anti-national.”
Responding to the PM’s promise that MSP will remain, Mr. Kejriwal said he wanted to see a mandi in U.P. where the crop is being bought at MSP. He also ridiculed U.P. CM Yogi Adityanath for not being able to stand up to sugar mills. “Their Ministers say that guaranteeing MSP would cost ₹17 lakh crore to the exchequer. I say without spending a single extra penny, the government could buy 23 crops at the MSP. In return, the government would get the crops that it would sell in the market. It might lead to profit or loss but in the long run, it all evens out.”