Digvijaya Singh in Hyderabad: BJP’s promises on employment, MSP for crops unfulfilled

Hyderabad: During his visit to Hyderabad on Thursday, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh reiterated the party’s promise to provide a legal guarantee for MSP for various crops, a long pending demand of the farmers from across the country.

He assured the farming community that it will be the first and foremost agenda of the INDIA bloc government if it assumes office after 2024 General Elections.

“The BJP and prime minister Narendra Modi are repeatedly backing out from what they promised before 2014. Modi, while campaigning during the run-up to the 2014 General Elections as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate had himself promised to provide the MSP based on the recommendations of the late MS Swaminathan, whom the BJP government very recently awarded with Bharat Ratna. BJP should have implemented his recommendations as that would be an equally great tribute to him,” he said.

He added that according to Swaminathan’s recommendations, the MSP should be based on the total input costs plus 50 per cent. “But sadly, Modi and the BJP in their characteristic way of reneging on their promises filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court of India saying providing MSP based on actual input cost plus 50 extra was not possible,” he said.

‘Are we living in a war zone?’

Speaking about the ongoing farmers’ protest in New Delhi, he said that the entire country has seen the horrible visuals of how the BJP-ruled Haryana state police has been resorting to brutal and inhuman ways of preventing farmers’ march. “Teargas shells are being lobbed using the drones. It is something akin to what Israel has been doing in Gaza. Are we living in a war zone and conflict zone or are we trying to create one?” he asked.

He also alleged that the BJP government is perpetuating a ‘reverse blockade’ by cutting the supply of petrol till ‘petrol pumps in Punjab and Haryana have dried down’. “Either their supply has been stopped or they have been threatened not to provide petrol and diesel to farmers for their tractors and other vehicles,” he said.

Unemployment and inflation

Digvijaya Singh listed the ‘broken promises’ made to the public by the Narendra Modi-led government in the last 10 years.

“He (Modi) said he will bring back entire black money stashed in foreign banks, for which he blamed Congress, and promised Rs 15 lakhs in every Indian’s bank account. Ten years have passed and the bank transfers are yet to take place,” the Congress leader said.

Speaking of unemployment in the country, Digvijaya Singh said Modi’s promise of creating two crore jobs every year had been unfulfilled. “Rather, the rate of unemployment in the country is the highest in the last 45 years,” he claimed.

“The demonetisation and faulty implementation of the GST, as our leader Rahul Gandhi said, proved to be the weapons of mass destruction for the economy and employment. It broke the back of the small and the medium industry, which provides maximum employment in the country,” he alleged.

The Congress leader also said that the price rise is at a historic high and the gas cylinder prices have more than doubled.

Defence services and media

Claiming that the defence services and the country’s defence have now been left to the ‘contract labourers’, he said that the Agnipath scheme is like appointing soldiers on a contract basis and that too for a brief period of four years.

“While the security of the country has been compromised, it also amounts to playing with the career of the youth who will opt for joining the defence services as they will become unemployed within four years,” he said.

He said that all these issues are not able to reach the public because the ‘Modi government has completely grabbed the media and has complete control over the narrative.’ “Some select and limited media organisations or individuals who dare to speak the truth to this government are heckled and harassed day in and day out,” he said.