Farmers Movement Archive

Expose Opposition canard on farm laws: Yogi to party

: Chief minister Yogi Adityanath strongly backed the Centre’s new farm laws, saying that the farmers were being misled. He urged the party cadres to expose the “canard” being spread by a “frustrated Opposition” on the issue. He tasked booth level cadres at all the party booths to tweet and retweet achievements and initiatives of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure maximum mileage and awareness to the various pro-poor schemes. He unveiled plans to distribute tablets to students of economically weaker sections and also referred to the Abhuday free coaching scheme in which, he said, 10 lakh students had joined so far. The image of the state had undergone a sea change over the last four years, he said and flagged the state’s jump to second spot in ease of doing business rankings, no riots and zero tolerance on crime and corruption as the key achievements. Addressing the concluding session of the UP BJP state working committee, Adityanath also referred to the issue of stray cattle in the state and how his government dealt with it. “Can any BJP cadre tolerate this that excess stray cattle be sent to the butchers?” he asked as the party workers responded with a resounding “no”. At this, Yogi said that his government had set up cow shelters across the state to address the issue. “As many as 5.5 lakh stray cattle are in various cow shelters. An additional 75,000 cattle have been given to people who are being given ₹900 for their upkeep. Now, we are also setting up cow shelters in villages,” he said. Referring to how 2.42 lakh farmers had benefitted from the Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme announced by PM Modi, Adityanath asked the cadres to “expose the Opposition claims.” “The Opposition is instigating farmers on contract farming when the fact is that in many parts of the state, like in Jhansi, contract farming has been going on for long, without any problem and to farmers’ advantage,” he said and referred to “record purchase” of food grains under the minimum support price (MSP). “Just see how since 2017 the state’s revenue has increased manifold. For instance, when we assumed office in 2017, there was value added tax (VAT) that fetched the state ₹49,000 crore. The same year GST (Goods and Services Tax) was introduced and the state’s revenue jumped to nearly ₹1 lakh crore. Similarly, the excise revenue that was just about ₹11,000 crore is now around ₹36,000 crore. The same is true for stamp and registration duty, mining and others,” he added.

Hindustan Times

15-03-2021

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