Modi government has betrayed farmers: Rajiv Shukla

Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Shukla on Friday accused the Narendra Modi government of betraying the farmers.

Dubbing the amendments to the land acquisition legislation as the 'Life Acquisition Act', he said the one-year rule of the Modi government could appropriately be described as "Kisan Virodhi, Narendra Modi" (anti-farmer, Narendra Modi).

While Modi was busy "beating drums and playing violin" from Japan to Mongolia, a grave agrarian crisis of unprecedented scale was overshadowing the farming sector, exposing food security of the country to risk, Shukla told reporters here.

He pointed out the central government's failure to keep its promises made to the farmers, including the Swaminathan Committee report on the fixation of minimum support price and bringing more crops under this system.

"There is an acute shortage of fertilisers. Farm exports have dipped substantially. Area under agricultural has fallen, pointing to mismanagement in the farm sector in one year," he added.