The farmers' unions on Friday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of trying to "divide and mislead" the protesters and reiterated their demand for a legal guarantee on minimum support price (MSP).
The unions' reaction came after Modi, during his address after transferring an installment of Rs 2,000 each to over nine crore farmers under the 'Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi' (PM-KISAN), accused the opposition of misusing the farmers' protest to push their political agenda.
"The prime minister's claim that we are being misguided by other political parties is false. It has been a month since we started our protest at Delhi borders, and we have not offered our platform to any politician,” farmer leader Abhimanyu Kohar said.
"In fact, we have banned them from using our stage. Our protest is not political,” he said.
Modi claimed that the three farm laws will benefit farmers, but he did not tell how the new laws will be beneficial for the peasants, Kohar added.
Shiv Kumar Kakka, a senior leader of Sankyut Kisan Morcha, said the prime minister had made an attempt to divide and mislead the farmers during his address. “In election rallies, he says his government has fixed MSP as per the recommendations of the M.S. Swaminathan Committee. But in court, they say it was not possible to do so," Kakka alleged.
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Earlier, in a blistering speech targeting opposition, Modi said when the agitation began farmers had some genuine demands like guaranteed minimum support price but people with political motives then took over and began making unrelated demands like the release of those accused of violence and making highways toll-free.
Thousands of farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana and parts of Uttar Pradesh, are camping on various Delhi borders for almost a month to protest against the three farm laws. At least five rounds of formal talks have failed to break the deadlock with the farmer groups refusing to accept anything less than the complete repeal of the laws.
Enacted in September, the three farm laws have been projected by the Centre as major reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove the middlemen and allow farmers to sell their produce anywhere in the country.
However, the protesting farmers have expressed apprehension that the new laws would pave the way for eliminating the safety cushion of the MSP and do away with the "mandi" (wholesale market) system, leaving them at the mercy of big corporates.
With inputs from PTI
