“Forget minimum support price, UP sugarcane farmers wait years for payment”

Arvind Kejriwal speaking at the Meerut Kissan Mahapanchayat in Uttar Pradesh.

New Delhi:

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today took a nasty swipe at the BJP over farmers issues. Speaking at Meerut’s Kissan Mahapanchayat, he even called out top BJP leaders, including his Uttar Pradesh counterpart, Yogi Adityanath, liars over their claims on the matter of minimum support price.

Taking off on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech in Parliament, in which he had reassured that the system of minimum support price to farmers would stay, Mr Kejriwal asked where in Uttar Pradesh MSP was paid. PM Modi, speaking in Parliament earlier this month as part of the motion of thanks to the Presidential address, had said, “MSP was there. MSP is there. MSP will remain in the future.” He was trying to assuage the fears of the thousands of farmers who have been protesting for the past many months against three new central farm laws.

Today, though, Mr Kejriwal used that statement to attack the entire BJP leadership.

“Their minister keeps saying that MSP was there and will remain. But you tell me if farmers get MSP in any of the mandis in UP. They lie day and night,” he said in Meerut today.

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