New Delhi, January 3
Meghalaya Governor Satya Pal Malik’s remarks quoting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in context of farmers and their year-long agitation against the three agricultural reform laws on Monday saw the opposition Congress mounting a major political offensive on the government demanding PM’s apology if the remarks were true.
Lodge an FIR and sack Governor Malik if he is lying. If not, PM Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah must come forward and apologise. Otherwise, the farmers and the souls of 700 deceased farmers and their families will never pardon you,” Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said today.
In a viral video of an event Malik addressed in Haryana’s Dadri on Sunday, he is heard saying that when he went to meet the PM in respect of the farmers’ agitation, the two ended up fighting in five minutes.
“When I went to meet the PM on the farmers’ issue, we ended up fighting in five minutes. He was in tremendous arrogance. When I told him 500 people died, the PM asked me whether they had died for me. I told him yes the farmers died because of him because he had become king on the basis of their support. Then the PM told me to meet Home Minister Amit Shah. Shah said people had clouded his vision and power of reason. Shah asked me to keep my meetings going,” Malik says in the video, which Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge earlier tweeted asking the PM if the remarks were true.
Surjewala said the entire nation was stunned and shocked with the text of the conversation between a “BJP-appointed Governor and the PM on the farmers’ agitation.”
“The real arrogant, anti farmer, insensitive face of PM Modi, the face of the BJP and the government which truly only works for crony capitalists and at the peril of farmers and farm labourers now stands exposed. Never in the history of India has the PM dared to say about India’s toiling farmers—so what if 500 farmers have died, they have not died for Modi.”
Surjewala asked if this was the language the PM should use for the farmers.
“The farmers did not die for the PM or the BJP. They died to protect food security and for justice to farmers of India. To dishonour their memory by none other than the PM is most regrettable,” said Surjewala.
The Congress also demanded that the PM should come forward and announce compensation for the next of kin of the deceased farmers, withdrawal of every criminal case registered against them from UP to Haryana and formation of a committee to determine a legally guaranteed MSP.
“The PM should ensure the committee is not only formed in the next 24 hours, it also releases its report in 30 days. This is the least that is expected of the PM.
The PM can no longer remain silent,” said Surjewala.
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