Kharge, Rahul to lead farmer outreach as Congress protests ‘anti-farmer’ US trade pact

New Delhi: Congress will organise at least three farmers' conferences in the next one month -- the first in Bhopal on February 24 -- to protest against the India-US trade deal which the party said is against the interest of the party.

The decision came at a meeting chaired by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and attended by Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, General Secretary (Organisation) KC Venugopal, Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and state presidents and legislature party leaders of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra.

Kharge said the meeting featured a “serious discussion” on the “trap deal” in which the Modi government has “compromised” the interests of farmers.

“This deal will directly impact cotton, soybean, maize farmers, and fruit and nut producers. To protect the rights of farmers, the Congress will organise ‘Kisan Sammelans’ and take this issue to every village,” he posted on X.

After the meeting, Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh told reporters that the discussion focused particularly on the US trade deal that was compelled to enter into and which represents Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "surrender".

"Its direct impact, in the first phase, will certainly be felt by cotton farmers, soybean farmers, maize farmers, and fruit and nut growers in these six states. That is why we held discussions with leaders from these states," he said.

The party decided to hold farmer's conferences first in Madhya Pradesh's capital Bhopal next Tuesday followed by one in Maharashtra's Yavatmal on March 7 and both Kharge and Rahul will attend both the programmes. The third such meeting will be in Rajasthan's Sri Ganganagar next month.

At the meeting, Ramesh said, both the Congress President and the LoP in Lok Sabha emphasised that the trade deal amounts to the Prime Minister’s "surrender".

"The first surrender, they said, occurred on May 10 last year when Operation Sindoor was suddenly halted. Similarly, regarding the Indo–US trade deal, about which the government has been making many claims, the reality is that it will have a direct negative impact on farmers," he said.

"Just as farmers’ organizations carried out a nearly one-and-a-half-year-long movement against the three black farm laws, we will, in the first phase, work alongside farmers’ organizations in these six states and subsequently in other states as well. We will highlight the threat this trade deal poses to the livelihoods of millions of our farmers and take this issue directly to the people," he added.