Modi misleading nation on MSP, allege farmers

A large number of farmers, ex-serviceman and representatives of Left-affiliated organisations on Thursday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of misleading and providing wrong information to the nation on MSP and other policies of his government.

Converging at Parliament Street here to protest on "Quit India Day", farmers demanded that the Central government write off crop loans taken from banks and implement the M.S. Swaminathan Commission report which recommends that minimum support price (MSP) be raised to 1.5 times the input cost.

All major farmer outfits from Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh participated in the protest.

All India Kisan Sabha general secretary Hannan Mollah said: "He (Modi) is a 100 per cent liar. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is misleading and providing wrong information to farmers saying they have raised the MSP for the Khariff crops by 50 per cent. It's not true."

Mollah said the present hike only factors in the cost of farm labour and investment on fertiliser and seeds.

"Effective hike is only 13 per cent and PM Modi has failed to honour his promise," he said.

The general secretary said around 20 lakh people in 400 districts of 25 states in the country are protesting against "false promises" made by the Narendra Modi government.

United Front of Ex-Servicemen also protested against what they called faulty implementation of the One Rank-One Pension (OROP) scheme, saying continuous degradation and ill-treatment to the defence forces is taking place in the country.

Colonel R.D. Sharma (retd) said: "After the BJP came to power, it promised to implement the OROP within 100 days. But now it is ignoring our cause and has changed the actual definition of OROP."

Sharma said now he receives less pension compared to his juniors and urged the government to pay uniform pension to all armed forces personnel.

--IANS

sm/nir