At a time when the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre is facing an unprecedented challenge over the new farm laws, JP Nadda on Saturday promised to work for farmers in West Bengal.
Nadda, who is on his second tour to Bengal in less than one month, said at a rally in Burdwan on Saturday said that BJP will make the lives of Bengali farmers better if they are elected to power in the upcoming State Assembly Elections.
“BJP will come to power in West Bengal with the help of famers. BJP will work for the farmers. Get one thing straight, Mamata Banerjee will not do anything,” said the saffron party’s national president.
Attacking the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government for not implementing Centre’s PM-KISAN scheme, Nadda said, “To start PM-KISAN, the farmers have sent letters many times. But today we’ve started the Krishak Surakkha Abhiyan (Farmers’ Safety Campaign). No more letter is required. We are coming. We’ll start PM-KISAN.”
Addressing Krishok Surokkha Gram Sabha at Jagadanandpur village ground, West Bengal. #KrishokSurokhaAbhijan https://t.co/wgJmsx7nv5
— Jagat Prakash Nadda (@JPNadda) January 9, 2021
Nadda also initiated the party’s flagship programme Ek Mutho Chal (a handful of rice). The event, which will be executed by the Bharatiya Janata Kisan Morcha (BJKM), will see the hindutva brigade reaching out to nearly 58,000 villages in the state to collect a handful of rice from farmers and make them aware about “the benefits of the new farm laws”.
The initiative comes at a time when farmers at the borders of Delhi and elsewhere have put the pressure on the central government to repeal the farm laws that were introduced last year.
In the eighth round of talks between the agitating farmers and the central government on Saturday, the latter categorically refused to bring down the new acts, saying that it “cannot, and will not” repeal them.
The Centre has reportedly asked the protesting farmers’ unions to move the Supreme Court and wait for its verdict.
The farmers’ protest – against the new Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act – has now gone for more than 40 days after beginning on November 26 last year at the Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders in Delhi.
Meanwhile, Nadda, who is on his second visit to West Bengal in less than two months, arrived at the Andal Airport in Burdwan on Saturday.
During his daylong visit, he would also hold a rally at Katwa and a roadshow at Burdwan town, which would be followed by a press conference. He is also scheduled to perform a puja at the Sarbamangala Temple.