Farmers Movement Archive

Rajnath Singh: Our heads will always remain bowed before farmers

Defence minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said his government decided to concede the farmers’ demand for repeal of the farm laws as it wanted to avert the situation from turning unpleasant, adding that “our heads will always remain bowed before annadata (farmers).” This appears to be the first time when a senior BJP leader has spoken up about what led to the withdrawal of the three farm laws. Addressing a meeting of BJP booth presidents of the Avadh region in Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh, Rajnath Singh said despite explanations, when the farmers refused to relent, Prime Minister Narendra Modi showed large heartedness by announcing withdrawal of the farm laws. “I have been born to a farmers’ family and our party considers the farmers as god. One can just see how many times during the regime of Congress and other political parties, farmers were fired at. But we never wanted such a situation. The three farm bills were passed by Parliament but we decided that if the farmers were not ready to listen, let us agree to their demands. Our heads would always remain bowed before our annadatas (farmers),” he said. “In UP, innocent ‘kar sevaks’ were fired at during the Samajwadi Party rule. But, we can neither open fire on farmers nor on Ram bhakts,” Rajnath Singh said, pitching the BJP as a pro-farmer government ahead of the 2022 UP polls. He also referred to the Kisan Samman Nidhi of ₹6000 per annum that the Modi government has been providing to farmers as proof of the government’s pro-farmer tilt.“I was the chief minister when the then farmer leader Mahendra Singh Tikait decided to march till the chief minister’s office. The police officers wanted to stop them. But I said no, we won’t stop them and we allowed them to march till the chief minister’s office,” he said. Rajnath Singh, who had acted upon senior party leader Jaswant Singh for his book praising Jinnah, also slammed the Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav for his remarks on the Pakistan founder. “Where was the need to bring in Jinnah in these elections? There was no need to bring in such a person who was responsible for the division of the country,” Rajnath said, adding that several Muslims have also differed with the SP chief’s remarks. “I wish to congratulate my Muslim brothers for disagreeing with the SP chief’s remarks as all of them agreed that Jinnah was responsible for the country’s partition,” Rajnath Singh said. Rajnath Singh spoke of his recent visit to Rezang La in the high Himalayas in Ladakh and said he decided to undertake the visit as a mark of respect to country’s brave soldiers who guard the borders at minus 20 degrees Celsius. “I had gone to inaugurate the war memorial at Rezang La in memory of those brave soldiers who had laid down their lives to protect the country. Vastly outnumbered, yet, they fought bravely and on coming to know of their bravery I ordered a grand war memorial in their memory,” Rajnath Singh said. “Just as soldiers are required to guard the country’s sovereignty, the BJP, too, is required to give good governance to the country,” he said, adding that he was confident of the party coming to power with a two-thirds majority in the 2022 UP polls. Rajnath Singh, who is a former BJP chief, also praised the Yogi Adityanath government in UP. “Today, there is fear among criminals and law and order was never so good. The government is practicing clean politics,” he said. “We are also running the government at the Centre and I challenge anyone to prove an iota of corruption,” he said.Reacting to Rajnath Singh’s remarks, Samajwadi Party leader IP Singh said, “The BJP is an expert at shifting the goalposts. We saw how after troubling the farmers, comparing them to terrorists and in fact doing everything it could to malign the farmers and their agitation, it finally withdrew the three black laws after realising that the farmers weren’t ready to budge. Yet, such is their politics that they are now positioning themselves as pro-farmers. As for Jinnah talk, why don’t BJP leaders consult their topmost leader Lal Krishna Advani and check out his views on him. The BJP’s credibility is so low that the farmers have refused to believe them until they withdraw the three farm laws in Parliament. Moreover, this government has still not given any assurance on law on MSP whereas we have already promised that when voted to power we would ensure that the kin of those farmers who died during the agitation are each given ₹25 lakh.”

Hindustan Times

25-11-2021

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