New Delhi: Stepping up the attack against the government over the three farm laws, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged Thursday that these legislations would damage India’s food security system and also ‘break the spine of farmers’. Rahul Gandhi also alleged that the country is being run by only four people with a ‘Hum do, Hamare do’ approach.
Rahul was participating in the debate on Union Budget in the Lok Sabha. He kept speaking on the three contentious agri laws, triggering protests from BJP members with Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi urging Speaker Om Birla to direct Rahul to speak on the budget. When the Speaker told Rahul to speak on the budget, the latter said he would talk only on the farmers’ issue.
Rahul said the Prime Minister, in his reply to the discussions on motion of thanks to the President’s address, had mentioned that the Opposition is talking about the farmers’ agitation. However, he was not speaking about the content and intent of the laws.
“So I thought let us make the Prime Minister happy and talk of the content and intent of these laws,” Rahul said. “The intent of these three laws is to allow industrialists to buy unlimited quantities of foodgrains and hoard them as much as they want,” he added.
Rahul claimed that these measures will end the ‘mandis’ and will end the Essential Commodities Act. “The new farm laws will destroy India’s food security system and will hurt rural economy. The farmers are not going anywhere but will overthrow the government,” Rahul asserted.
Rahul also invoked the family planning slogan – ‘Hum do Hamare do. He attacked the government and said just four people are running India. “Now four people are running the country…And everyone knows who they are,” he said.
The Prime Minister had said that these laws have given options to farmers. “Yes, options are – hunger, unemployment and suicide,” Rahul alleged.
The former Congress chief also said the agitation is not of the farmers alone. It is a movement of India and the government will have to repeal the farm laws.
In a dramatic move, Rahul also led his party members and those from the Trinamool Congress and the DMK to observe a two-minute silence by standing to mourn the death of farmers during the ongoing agitation. He claimed that ‘200 farmers’ have died during protests. He said he was doing this as the government has not paid tributes to them.