Congress leader Rahul Gandhi met with a delegation of 12 farmer leaders under the aegis of Kisan Mazdoor Morcha and Samyukt Kisan Morcha inside the Parliament premises on Wednesday, a day after the Union Budget was presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

During the meeting, the farmers discussed the issue of MSP (minimum suport price) and urged the Gandhi scion to raise the matter in the House.

“In our manifesto, we have mentioned MSP with a legal guarantee. We have done the assessment and it can be implemented. We had a meeting right now where we decided that we will talk to other leaders of the INDIA alliance to put pressure on the government that MSP legal guarantee should be given to the farmers of the country,” Rahul said after the meeting with farmer leaders.

Congress MPs K C Venugopal, Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Gurjeet Singh Aujla, Dharamvir Gandhi, Amar Singh, Deepender Singh Hooda, and Jai Prakash were also present at the meeting.

Earlier, reports indicated that the farmers invited by Gandhi were denied entry into the Parliament complex.

Speaking inside Parliament, Gandhi noted, “We had invited them (farmer leaders) here to meet us. But they are not allowing them here (in Parliament) because they are farmers…”

He further expressed his frustration, alleging that the authorities were preventing the farmers from entering, saying, “…This is the issue…What should we do?…It could be a technical issue also.”

Eventually, the farmer leaders were allowed in.

The meeting between Rahul Gandhi and the farmer leaders came a day after the government presented the Union Budget 2024-25.

The Congress has alleged that the farmers have received a “raw deal” in the Union Budget 2024-25 and that their MSP demand was met with “stony silence.”

Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh commented, “The Agriculture and Allied Budget – which affects a majority of the country’s population – is only 3.15% of the total budget, down from 5.44% in 2019-2020. This is after a year of bad monsoons dragged down agricultural growth from 4.7% in 2022-23 to 1.4% in 2023-24, necessitating greater government support for the sector.”

“The demand for legal status for MSP has also been met with stony silence – as has the demand for a farm loan waiver,” he added.