Prime Minister Narendra Modi yesterday hailed his government for raising the Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) of crops, while lambasting West Bengal’s Mamata Banerjee regime for “forming a nexus with syndicates” and murdering Dalit political activists, even as 90 people sustained injuries following a canopy collapse at a BJP rally here.
Indicating that the government’s recent measures to woo the farmers would be a major campaign issue in coming state assembly and Lok Sabha polls, he blamed previous governments for failing to hike the MSP of crops despite farmers’ demands and expert panels’ recommendations.
“The demand for raising the MSP was placed before every government. Many commissions and committees were formed. But every time it was stalled. Files kept on piling,” the prime minister told a farmers’ rally in Midnapore town.
“The farmers went on demanding and agitating... but neither the state governments nor those in power in Delhi heard them..”
The centre recently approved an MSP, providing farmers a profit of 50% or more over “cost of production” for kharif crops for 2018-19.
Reiterating his commitment to farmers, Modi said the government was working to double farmers’ income by 2022, and highlighted the decision to consider bamboo as a grass that paved the way for peasants to produce, cut and sell bamboo.
Listing his government’s policy initiatives for farmers, he said: “”My government is your government and it is a pro-farmer government.” While Modi utilised the first part of his speech to endear himself to the agrarian constituency, which so long seemed upset with his government, the latter half of his address contained an all-out attack on Mamata’s Trinamool Congress dispensation, accusing it of having no faith in democracy, the Indian constitution or the electoral process.
“Those who don’t believe in democracy or the process of election, or the Constitution and the government that has to be reprimanded by High Court and Supreme Court, should be careful. This is Bengal, none of them will be spared,” warned the prime minister, who started his speech in Bengali amid tumultuous applause and high-decibel chants of “Modi, Modi”.
Asking Mamata to take note of “the strength and discipline” of the people at the rally, Modi urged the people and the workers of BJP to “think together and bravely” to shake the “foundation of the syndicate” as was done in Tripura – where the BJP won the assembly polls earlier this year by ending 25 years of Left Front rule.
Referring to the 34 years of Left Front rule in West Bengal that ended in 2011 when the Trinamool was came to power, he said while it took time to vote out the communists, it won’t take long this time around.

90 injured as canopy collapses

Ninety people sustained injuries and were taken to hospital yesterday when a part of the canopy collapsed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi address in a rally in West Bengal’s Midnapore town, hospital authorities said. The injured were rushed to the Midnapore Medical College and Hospital in ambulances in the prime minister’s convoy and even on motorcycles, after the incident yesterday afternoon. According to a list released by the Medical Superintendent of the hospital, a total of 90 persons were taken to the hospital, including 66 males and 24 females. However 14 of them were discharged after primary treatment and the rest admitted to different departments in the hospital. The rally was organised by the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party. State BJP president Dilip Ghosh later said: “If it is found that the crash happened due to any intentional mistake on anybody’s part, then proper action will be taken.” After the rally, Modi visited the injured in the hospital and talked to the doctors treating them. “Modi was at the hospital for five-six minutes. He talked to some of the injured and the doctors and then left for Delhi by a helicopter,” a BJP leader said.


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