New Delhi: Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and senior leader of the Congress party, Mallikarjun Kharge reacted to the Centre’s response over no data of farmers’ who died during the farmers’ protest. Kharge said that it was an insult to the farmers. “This is farmers' insult. More than 700 farmers lost their lives during protests against 3 farm laws. How can Centre say that they don't have any record of it?” said Kharge as reported by ANI.
He further said, "If Govt doesn't have a record of 700 people then how they had collected data of lakhs of people during a pandemic. Over 50 lakh people lost their lives due to #COVID19 in the last 2 years but according to govt, only 4 lakh people died due to the virus."
The Central government today during the session of the Parliament responded to a question whether the government would provide financial support to the kin of farmers who died during the protest. Answering to the question, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Tomar said, “The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmer's Welfare has no record in the matter and hence the question does not arise."
However, farmer unions and Opposition parties have claimed that around 700 farmers lost their lives during the protest, who were mostly from Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh.
Thousands of farmers were protesting at the Delhi borders against the three farm laws that the Central government had passed last year. They also demand legislation to be passed that would guarantee Minimum Support Price to the farmers and to take back the cases registered against farmers during the protests. They also demanded monetary compensation to the families of farmers who lost their lives during the protest.
This year on November 19, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced repealing of the three laws during the winter session of the parliament.
On Monday, the opening day of the winter session, the Parliament approved to repeal of all three laws without any discussion.