Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait on Monday demanded a law to be formed guaranteeing a Minimum Support Price (MSP) to the farmers on their produce.
Tikait’s statement came after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Parliament that the MSP that was already given is here to stay.
“When did we say that MSP is ending? We said that a law be formed on MSP. If such a law is formed, all the farmers of the country will be benefitted. Right now, there is no law on MSP and the farmers are looted by traders,” Rakesh Tikait said.
“The way rates of a flight ticket fluctuate three to four times a day, the price of crops will not be decided the same way,” Tikait said.
On the PM’s remark about the emergence of a “new community” which is “engaged in protests”, Tikait said, “Yes, this time it is the farmers’ community which has emerged and people are also supporting the farmers”.
He also slammed the attempts to divide the ongoing movement of farmers on caste and religious lines.
“This movement was first portrayed as Punjab’s issue, then Sikhs’ then Jats, so on and so forth. The farmers of the country are united. There is no small farmer or big farmer. The movement belongs to all farmers,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Modi in his response to the Motion of Thanks on the President’s address in Rajya Sabha, said, “MSP was there. MSP is there. MSP will remain in the future. Affordable ration for the poor will continue. Mandis will be modernised”.
Reacting to the PM’s speech, another farmer leader Abhimanyu Kohar, who is also member of Samkyukta Kisan Morcha, said that the government has already said “hundreds of times” that the MSP will not go anywhere and it will remain.
“If the government is claiming that MSP will remain, why doesn’t it provide a legal guarantee on the minimum support price for our crops,” Kohar told PTI.
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