Varun Gandhi backs protesting farmers, calls them own ‘flesh and blood’
Item
Title
Varun Gandhi backs protesting farmers, calls them own ‘flesh and blood’
Description
BAREILLY: BJP’s Lok Sabha MP from PIlibhit Varun Gandhi on Sunday backed farmers protesting against the three new farm laws, saying that they are “our own flesh and blood”. Sharing a video of the large turnout at the farmers’ mahapanchayat in Muzaffarnagar, he tweeted, “Lakhs of farmers have gathered in protest today, in Muzaffarnagar. They are our own flesh and blood. We need to start re-engaging with them in a respectful manner: understand their pain, their point of view and work with them in reaching common ground.” With about 10,000 tweets, “Varun Gandhi” was trending at number 29 in India at the time of filing this report. Over the entire day, “#Muzaffarnagar” was the longest trending in India, over 13 hours. “I have always felt the pain of farmers. That is why, since 2009, I have donated my salary earned as MP to families of farmers who had killed themselves,” Gandhi told TOI. In his book on rural India, he had written about the struggles of marginal farmers. On Aug 31, he had met farmers in his constituency to discuss their problems. And last week, when the Karnal SDM Ayush Sinha was purportedly heard asking cops to “break the heads” of protesting farmers, he had tweeted the video, saying, “I hope this video is edited and the DM (sic) did not say this… Otherwise, this is unacceptable in democratic India to do to our own citizens.” About that, he told TOI, “I had shared my reaction to the Karnal video because it was intolerable under any circumstance. I have been meeting farmer leaders to understand their issues.”
Publisher
The Times of India
Date
2021-09-06
Coverage
India