BJP to launch nationawide agitation against anti-farmer policies

New Delhi, Aug 3 (UNI) Announcing a nationwide agitation against anti-farmer policies of the Government, the BJP today said a massive rally would be held at the Ram Lila Grounds here on August 20 to focus on six major demands of the farmers, including remunerative price for their products.

Addressing newspersons, BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said after the rally which would be addressed by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Leader of the Opposition L K Advani and party president Rajnath Singh, the farmers would take out a march towards Parliament and "may court arrest" to press for their demands and highlight their plight.

About one lakh farmers from UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh were expected to attend the rally, he said.

The six major demands include CBI inquiry into wheat import scam, immediate increase in Minimum Support Price, agriculture loans at 4 per cent interest, minimum income guarantee to farmers by implementing income guarantee insurance scheme, immediate availability of seeds and fertilisers and immediate payment to sugarcane growers.

The party appointed former Maharashtra deputy Chief Minister and party general secretary Gopinath Munde as incharge of the rally.

The party said the MSP declared last week by the UPA Government was an insult to the farmers who were already reeling under many problems and demanded an immediate review of prices of all the foodgrains and an increase of at least Rs 100 per quintal in the MSP across the board.

The party said the wheat scam was already in the open and ridiculed the Government's dubbing the wheat import as an "error of judgement." It said nothing less than a CBI inquiry would bring out the facts.

According to the party, the Government cancelled the first tenders in May at 263 dollars per metric tonne and accepted the July tenders at 320-360 dollars per MT. The Government went in for import of wheat despite the fact that the indegenous production increased by five million tonnes over last year's and offered only Rs 850 per quintal to farmers as against importing the commodity at Rs 1400 per quintal.

UNI