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Former bureaucrats back BJP's counter-campaign on farm issues, call it a 'far-sighted' move

Last Updated 28 September 2020, 16:24 IST

Cornered by farmer protests gaining momentum, BJP in the middle of a 15-day Jan Jagaran counter campaign, looks with anticipation as a group of former public servants have issued a statement hailing the farm laws as a “far-sighted” move and a “game changer” for farmers.

32 top former bureaucrats including former secretary, Delhi an Director NMML Shakti Sinha, former finance secretary S Narayan, former Banking Secretary D K Mittal, former defence secretary G Mohan Kumar, former Petroleum Secretary Saurabh Chandra issued a statement slamming the Opposition parties including Congress alleging them of “inciting” farmers and condemn “surreptitious practices of vested interests for misleading an misguiding the farmers.

The letter also signed by former Principal Secretaries of Karnataka S L Gangadharappar and Ramesh Zalaki and four more former bureaucrats from the state, lent their weight behind the farm reform legislations passed by Modi government in the recently concluded Monsoon Session, hailing it as “watershed” moment in the liberation of India's farming community from the shackles of exploitative practices.

The BJP shared the statement issued by the bureaucrats.

At a time when farm protests have spread in states like Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, the group trained guns on the critics of the farm laws saying "We have reasons to apprehend the disinformation which certain sections within our society are trying to spread in the country. We have recent instances of untruths and distortions being paraded before the public with hugely negative impact on the morale of the minorities, students, and now the farmers.”

They argued that the general public has every reason to suspect the “well-meaning efforts of the government in bringing succour to the farming community” and slammed the attempt of “misguiding and misleading the farmers and discrediting the well-intentioned national initiatives.

As Congress seeks to build a 2015 land bill temp on the issue, the group of bureaucrats in an apparent reference to it reminded that the emancipation of the farmers from the middlemen and empowering them with the freedom to choose where and how to sell their produce was enshrined in the manifestos of certain political forces which oppose it now.

Union Minster Prakash Javadekar separately said that Congress manifesto had promised to do what the Modi government did with farm sector reform bills but the Opposition party is trying to mislead farmers by speaking in a different voice.

As the farm protest got stepped up with Congress workers burning of a tractor near India Gate in Delhi and, the BJP pressed in a number of leaders who went hammer and tongs slamming the Opposition.

While Javadekar said, “the Congress shamed the country today by burning tractor even as agriculture tools are venerated by farmers, BJP general secretary in-charge for poll-bound Bihar Bhupender Yadav sought to throw back the “anti-farmers” allegation at Congress itself asking it not to use food producers for politics. Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said Congress conspiracy has been unmasked.

Newly appointed Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) president Tejasvi Surya said, “Our farmers worship tools they use for farming. No real farmer ever burns his tractor. If at all the Youth Congress wanted to show their support to farmers, they could have donated the tractor to a poor farmer instead of burning it.”

From September 15, BJP has already organised a Jan Jagaran to counter the Opposition campaign on farm issues.

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(Published 28 September 2020, 13:08 IST)

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