'Modi Govt Honouring Only To Cheat Farmers': SKM On Bharat Ratna For Charan Singh, Swaminathan

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) extended gratitude for Chaudhary Charan Singh and Dr. MS Swaminathan's posthumous Bharat Ratna award recognition, but slammed the Modi government over "poor vote-catching gimmick".

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) expressed appreciation for the posthumous recognition of Chaudhary Charan Singh and Dr. MS Swaminathan with the Bharat Ratna award but criticised it as an attempt to divert attention from the government's failure to implement the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for crops as recommended by the Swaminathan committee. In a statement, the SKM asserted that Singh and Swaminathan's contributions to farmers would be remembered regardless of the award, and condemned Prime Minister Narendra Modi for not addressing the farmers' crisis in India.

According to PTI, the farmers' body stated, "SKM welcomes the BJP government's late recognition of Chaudhary Charan Singh and due recognition of Dr. MS Swaminathan for their contribution to agriculture and farmers in conferring Bharat Ratna on them. While Chaudhary Charan Singh had a role in the implementation of Zamindari Abolition in UP leading to ownership rights for the peasantry, as the Chairman of the National Farmers' Commission, Dr. MS Swaminathan made recommendations for income guarantee to farmers."

"However, the Modi government is honoring and decorating the leaders only to cheat the farmers and people. The PM has neither honesty nor sincerity and indulged in a poor vote-catching gimmick intended to worsen farmers’ misery and use tokenism to camouflage his services to big corporate forces associated with foreign companies in farming," it also said, as quoted by PTI's report.

SKM Denounces PM Modi For 'Failing To Solve Crisis Of Farmers'

The SKM accused the government of indulging in many forms of tokenism to divert the attention of people from its policies ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.  "SKM denounces PM Modi for failing to solve the crisis of farmers of India. Farmers are reeling under the pressure of high input costs and poor govt infrastructure and services in agriculture, including seeds, fertilizers, insecticides, electricity, diesel, irrigation, machinery, post-harvest facilities, storage and cold storage facilities, marketing yards, food processing facilities, marketing," it further added.

The collective organisation representing farmers' groups, which spearheaded the demonstrations against the recently revoked Farms law, reaffirmed its additional requests. These include cutting input expenses in half while reinstating fertiliser subsidies, forgiving debts for all farmers and agricultural laborers, lowering interest rates for microfinance, opposing increases in electricity rates, rejecting prepaid meters, and ensuring that rural households receive 300 units of free electricity, among other demands. The SKM and the Joint Platform for Central Trade Unions (CTUs) declared a nationwide rural shutdown and industrial strike on February 16, backed by numerous other organisations.