Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has continued his tough line on the three new agriculture laws against which farmers' groups are protesting.
Rahul Gandhi was speaking at an event in Kalpetta in his Parliamentary constituency of Wayanad in Kerala on Thursday.
Rahul Gandhi was quoted by ANI as saying, "The truth is that most farmers do not understand the details of the Bill (the three farm laws); because if they did, there would be an agitation all across the country. The country would be on fire."
Rahul recounted his participation in a farmers' agitation in Bhatta Parsaul near Noida in Uttar Pradesh in 2011. Then, Rahul had spent time with farmers in Bhatta Parsaul, who were protesting land acquisition plans of the Mayawati government, which was governing Uttar Pradesh then.
Rahul said, "Some years ago, I noticed there was attempt to attack India's farmers. It started in Bhatta Parsaul when their land was just being taken away. I realised it was a problem and I started a conversation inside Congress party. Result of that was a new Land Acquisition Bill." The land acquisition law was passed by the Manmohan Singh government in 2013.
Rahul said, "We threw out the old British bill and brought out a brand new bill that guaranteed compensation and protection to our farmers... The first thing Narendra Modi ji did when he became PM was trying to kill this bill. We fought him in Parliament and stopped him from killing it. He [Modi] told his chief ministers that he cannot defeat the bill in Parliament—they should kill it in states."
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Rahul began a two-day visit to his constituency on Wednesday. Rahul kicked off campaigning for the upcoming Assembly polls in Kerala. On Wednesday, Rahul addressed conventions of the Congress-led United Democratic Front in two places of Malappuram district, which falls under his constituency. Rahul hit out at Modi and the RSS over issues such as Chinese incursions, the bleak employment scenario and polarisation in society.
"You know the damage the prime minister is doing to the fabric of the nation. For the first time, Chinese troops are sitting inside Indian territory. Our economy, one of the best performing in the world, has collapsed. Our youngsters simply cannot get jobs. This is the result of the ideology of the RSS," he said.
"Of course, the prime minister is incompetent, but the real cause of this failure is the hatred the RSS is spreading in the country," the former Congress president said. Targeting Modi, he asked what happened to his "56 inch chest when the Chinese troops came inside the country. The prime minister has not said a word about China in the past six months," Rahul said.
