National president of Swaraj India Yogendra Yadav on Thursday demanded that the Manohar Lal Khattar-led Haryana Government reconsider its policies in the interest of the farming community. He also raised farmer-related issues of bajra procurement, compensation for crop damage due to the recent rains and denotification of land acquired by the government during a press conference.
Yadav said Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s claims of 1.5 times return of input cost and the Haryana Government’s announcements to procure every single grain of bajra had fallen flat.
“The government has not said that 10 lakh quintals would be procured by the government at MSP while the rest would be procured under the Bhavantar scheme, wherein the farmer will sell his crop and will be compensated for the shortfall. However, here, too, the government has set a fixed rate of Rs 1,200 per quintal and the difference will be paid according to this. The farmers of Madhya Pradesh are disillusioned with this scheme, which has been a failure. We want it scrapped in Haryana as well,” Yadav said.
He announced that the party would launch a protest from October 1 in Rewari if bajra is not procured at the MSP. “We don’t want the Bhavantar scheme. The crop should be procured only at the MSP,” the leader said.
While rejecting the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY) for failing the farmers, Yadav said the government should announce compensation for rain-related damage to crops. “Let the compensation be not a flat rate but a formula to work out the crop value,” he suggested.
On the issue of an amendment in the Land Acquisition Act made in Haryana, he said it was unfair to the farmers to denotify land acquired in the past for projects and demanded that the award be given with interest.
“First, the government takes the land forcibly. Then the farmers are forced to buy back their land. Where is the money to give interest and pay that amount back? In Sirsa, the government has denotified 300 acres of land belonging to 100 farmers who are in panic. It was done because the Centre could not incorporate it at the national level,” he alleged.
Yadav, accompanied by Rajiv Godara, who was named president of the party state unit, said they had sought time from the Chief Minister to submit a memorandum on these issues.
Maintaining that the Swaraj Party had taken up the cause of farmers and youth, he said that either these or the Hindu-Muslim divide would be the basis of the next elections. On whether he would consider going back to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal, Yadav said the former had left the path of struggle. “If at all anybody has to come back, it is him and the AAP. We are where we started out—-on the roads,” he added.
