Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra unleashed her series of critical tweets against the ruling BJP party on Sunday as she accused the government of ‘tampering with’ and ‘suppressing’ National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report on farmer suicides.
She also tagged a media report which claimed that several changes have been made in the latest NCRB report on farmer suicides and for the first time, a list of state-wise figures was not given.
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NCRB data on farmer suicides in 2016 was finally released by the Modi government on October 21 The NCRB had released its much-delayed crime data report on 21 October. However, it had chosen to not release the data on farmer suicides on the same day. The report showed that there were over 11,370 farmer suicides across India in 2016, a rate of more than 31 suicides a day.
Maharashtra continues to feature as the state with the highest number of farmer suicides. Of the 11,379 suicides by farm labourers, landholders, and cultivators in 2016, as many as 3,661 were from Maharashtra. That’s one in every three farmer suicides.
“Why are the BJP government people so afraid of the truth? Farmers are continuously committing suicide under the BJP government’s rule,” Priyanka Gandhi claimed in a tweet.
“Instead of solving the problems of the farmers, the BJP government considered it more appropriate to tamper with and suppress the report on farmer suicides,” the Congress general secretary said.
She asked the government to give the right price to the farmers, give them facilities, and give them respect. Do not render the farmers helpless, strengthen them, she said. In another tweet, she attacked the government over farmers allegedly not getting the right price for onions.
“What is the plight of farmers under the BJP government? To stop the rising prices of onions, they are being imported, but our farmers do not get the right price for their onions which they have grown with their hard work,” she said. “The farmer is getting Rs 8 per kg of onion and onion is being sold at Rs 100 per kg in the market. What is happening?” she added and tagged the video of a farmer expressing his plight.