CT Ravi slams Congress, Left parties over farmers' issues

Bengaluru : BJP national general secretary in-charge of Maharashtra and Tami Nadu Tuesday came down on Congress, Communist parties and farmers union over farmers protest.

C.T. Ravi dared both the parties to answer publicly why they were insisting farmers sell their products in markets run by Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMC) alone.

He was talking to reporters after the Bharat Bandh that evoked considerable traction in several parts of the state,

The Communist ruled state of Kerala, Ravi said, did not have a single APMC market, while the Congress itself had proposed to bring the same law since 2004 onward.

"The opposition by both the Congress and the Communist parties is a clear case in point that it was done only with the intention to malign Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The idea behind fuelling such disgruntlement is to tarnish all the good work done by Modi," he said.

Why, he asked, both the Communist parties and the Congress are opposing the very idea of creating another parallel market which can provide a better alternative to the farmers.

"The clear intention of this protest is nothing but to prevent the farmers from getting better prices and protect the middleman culture that is rampant in APMCs," he alleged.

Training his guns on the Karnataka farmers' unions, the BJP leader said that the state's iconic and undisputed farmer leader - Nanjunada Swamy - was vehemently opposed to the farmers being forced to sell in the APMCs.

"He had said, 'the farmer can sell his produce anywhere, who is anyone to question him?' This was his stand, but the farmers' associations which are largely indebted to him are trying to misguide the farmers in the state," he said.

IANS report with edits