Congress leader Rahul Gandhi held a meeting with 12 farmers coming all the way from Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Punjab inside the Parliament complex on Wednesday. After the meeting with the farmers, the head of the opposition party, Rahul Gandhi, while addressing the Lok Sabha today, said that the India bloc will push the BJP government for legal support for the MPS (minimum price support).
In our manifesto for the general election, we promised a legal guarantee for the MSP. We did an assessment, and it can be done. In the meeting, we decided to discuss it with other INDIA bloc leaders and press the government for its implementation,” said Rahul Gandhi. The meeting with farmers was also attended by prominent Congress MPs Deepender Singh Hooda, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, KC Venugopal, and Amarinder Singh Raja Warring.
The farmers leaders said that they were promised by the Congress party that they would become the medium to raise the views of farmers in the Lok Sabha and would push the government to investigate the Haryana firing incident. The Haryanans fired teargas shells in a riot against the protesting farmers on February 21 in Hisar to stop them from going to Khanauri.
The Supreme Court of India also held a decision regarding setting up a committee on July 24 who will be responsible for looking into the demands and needs of the farmers, including a legal guarantee of minimum support price for crops. Other than that, the Apex Court has directed the state government of Punjab and Haryana and the Central government to suggest the names of individuals who can be part of the committee while giving an order for a status quo for a week on the Shambhu border near Ambala, where the farmers have been protesting and camping since February 13.
For a long time, the farmers have been demanding a legal guarantee of the minimum support price (MSP) for crops, among other things. In the Union Budget 2024–25, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the government has allocated Rs. 1.52 lakh crore for the agricultural and allied sectors.