In this combo of file photos of (L-R) former Prime Ministers P.V. Narasimha Rao and Charan Singh, and agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan, who will be honoured with the Bharat Ratna – country’s highest civilian award.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Samyukt Kisan Morcha on February 10 welcomed the conferring of Bharat Ratna on Chaudhary Charan Singh and MS Swaminathan but termed it an attempt to divert people’s attention from government’s failure to provide Minimum Support Price for crops as suggested by the Swaminathan committee.
In a statement, the SKM also said Mr. Singh and Mr. Swaminathan will remain alive in people’s memory for their contribution to farmers even without a Bharat Ratna and “denounced” Prime Minister Narendra Modi for failing to solve the crisis of farmers of India.
“SKM welcomes BJP government’s late recognition of Chaudhary Charan Singh and due recognition of Dr. MS Swaminathan for their contribution to agriculture and farmers in conferring Bharat Ratna on them. While Chaudhary Charan Singh had a role in implementation of Zamindari Abolition in UP leading to ownership rights for peasantry, as the Chairman of the National Farmers’ Commission, Dr. MS Swaminathan made recommendations for income guarantee to farmers,” the SKM said in a statement.
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“However, the Modi government is honouring and decorating the leaders only to cheat the farmers and people. The PM has neither honesty nor sincerity and indulged in a poor vote catching gimmick intended to worsen farmers’ misery and use tokenism to camouflage his services to big corporate forces associated with foreign companies in farming,” it said.
The SKM accused the government of indulging in many forms of tokenism to divert attention of people from its policies ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.
“SKM denounces PM Modi for failing to solve the crisis of farmers of India. Farmers are reeling under pressure of high input cost and poor govt infrastructure and services in agriculture, including seeds, fertilizers, insecticides, electricity, diesel, irrigation, machinery, post harvest facilities, storage and cold storage facilities, marketing yards, food processing facilities, marketing,” it said.
The umbrella body of farmers’ organisations, which had led the farmers’ protest against the now repealed farm laws, reiterated its other demands including reduction by half of all input costs with restoration of fertiliser subsidy, debt waiver for all farmers and agriculture workers, reduction in microfinance interest rates, no hike in electricity tariff, no to prepaid metres; and 300 units free electricity to all rural households among others.
The SKM and Joint Platform for CTUs have announced a nationwide gramin bandh and industrial strike on February 16, which has been supported by a number of other organisations.