'What Magic is This Rahul Ji?' Nadda Tweets Old Video of Cong Leader's LS Speech Batting for Farm Reforms

BJP president JP Nadda on Sunday shared an old video of Rahul Gandhi’s speech in Lok Sabha in which the Congress leader is seen advocating the need for farmers to get rid of middlemen and sell their produce directly to industry.

“What is this magic happening Rahul ji. You are opposing now what you had advocated earlier. You have nothing to do with the country’s or farmers’ interests. You have to play politics only. But this is your bad luck that your hypocrisy will not work. People of the country and farmers have recognised your double standards,” Nadda tweeted in Hindi along with the video clip.

The Congress has backed the farmers’ protest against three agriculture-marketing laws which give cultivators an option to sell their produce directly to private players. Agitating farmers have argued that these laws are aimed at weakening the existing government’s support for the farm sector, a charge denied by the Centre.

In his speech, purportedly made in the last Lok Sabha when he was an MP from Amethi, Gandhi is heard saying that a farmer during his trip to Uttar Pradesh asked him to explain the “magic” behind a packet of potato chips costing Rs 10 while farmers sell potato for Rs 2 per kg. When he asked what they thought was the reason for this, the farmer said factories are located very far from them and if they could sell their produce directly there, they will get all the money without middlemen earning any cut, Gandhi is heard saying in the short video posted by Nadda.

“That was the idea behind a food park, and this is in a way what farmers and labourers of Amethi and 10-12 districts of Uttar Pradesh have been fighting for,” he says in the clip. Gandhi had accused the Modi government during its first term of shelving the food park project in Amethi. The government had denied the charge and said the park never had land.

Hitting back at Nadda, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said that before targeting Gandhi, the BJP chief should have known there is no MSP on potatoes and asked him why the government had to import potatoes when there is enough within the country. “Dear Nadda ji, before misleading the farmers, you should have known that there is no MSP on potatoes. And…we also want reforms in the agriculture sector, but the question here is the way the life of farmers has been attacked with the three black laws,” he said in a tweet in Hindi.

“You should also tell why you are importing one million tonnes of potatoes from abroad while leaving the country’s farmers,” he said, replying to Nadda’s tweet.

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