NEW DELHI: Amid a row in Parliament over the issue of minimum support price (MSP) for certain crops, govt on Friday sought to call out the opposition’s “double standard” in Rajya Sabha by flagging a Cabinet note of the then UPA govt that rejected the recommendation of the M S Swaminathan-led National Commission on Farmers on giving support price at 50% more than the weighted average of input cost.
Highlighting that the Manmohan Singh govt had then argued that such higher MSP could distort the ‘mandi’ (agri market), Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday placed the Cabinet note of July 28, 2007 before the Upper House.
“The Opposition just does politics in the name of farmers and creates chaos, but as agriculture minister, I assure you that under the Prime Minister’s leadership, we will leave no stone unturned to make farming profitable and double farmers’ incomes,” said Chouhan. His remarks come as a counter to the charges of Congress members Randeep Surjewala and Jairam Ramesh in the House.
Chouhan even cited various responses of the then ministers – Sharad Pawar, Kantilal Bhuria and K V Thomas – of UPA-I & II regimes and claimed that all of them had rejected the higher MSP that was recommended by the Swaminathan commission on one or the other ground.
“We have given twice the MSP rates as compared to when Surjewala’s (Congress-led UPA) govt was in office,” said Chouhan amid sloganeering by opposition members. He said maximum procurement has been done under the Modi govt, and the govt will this year buy all the produce of pulses such as tur, masoor, and urad from farmers.
On the question of legal guarantee for minimum support price, Chouhan said a committee had been constituted to suggest ways to make MSP available to farmers by “making the system more effective and transparent”.
Later, Ramesh criticised Chouhan in a post on X (formerly Twitter): “For almost 30 minutes, he stonewalled and went round and round in order to avoid answering the question. Legal guarantee for MSP for rice, wheat and other agri-produce was the issue. All that the minister accomplished was delivering a jalebi.”
Addressing a press conference, Surjewala said, “Modi govt’s conspiracy has been exposed as the agriculture minister refused C2+50 per cent profit as MSP.”
