Naidu tears UPA claims on pro-aam aadmi policies

DEHRADUN: On the second day of its national executive meeting, the BJP trained its guns on the Congress-led UPA government for messing up the country’s economy — as manifest by the spurt in the farmers’ suicides across the country and the back-breaking prices.

Realising the gravity of the situation and the popular resentment on the twin issues, the party departed from the normal practice to pass two separate resolutions here on Friday. While the first one highlighted the crisis in the country’s food security and the farm front, the second one took stock of the escalating prices of essential commodities, and came up with a five-point demand to check the trend.

A six-member committee, to be led by former BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu, has been set up to draw an agitational programme to tap the popular discontent on inflationary pressures.

Expressing its deep concern over “the multi-dimensional crisis afflicting agriculture and food security in India”, the party demanded the formation of a joint-parliamentary committee (JPC) to undertake a case-study of farmers’ suicides and hammer out a “holistic response” to the problem. “The panel could make an in-depth study of the situation prevailing on the ground by meeting the farmers, financial and agricultural experts,” Mr Naidu, who piloted the resolution, told newspersons this afternoon.

It flayed the Manmohan Singh government for announcing a Vidarbha-specific, and not a national, relief package for the farmers. Even this package was termed by the party as an “eye-wash”.“Piece-meal efforts will not help.

There is need for a comprehensive national package covering adequate and timely credit, waiver of interest for all the affected farmers, particularly those in the rain-fed areas, re-scheduling of loans and sanctioning of fresh loans, to impress upon all the state governments to join the national comprehensive income insurance scheme, availability of quality seeds for all the farmers, proper remunerative prices for their produce, alternative sources of income and strengthening the cold storage chain in the rural areas,” Mr Naidu said. The party termed the UPA government’s response to the situation as “insensitive to the point of being callous”.

It took Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the BJP leader said, two years after assuming office to find time to visit Vidarbha, that too after a massive outcry in the political and media circles. And more than a 100 farmers have committed suicides since then. The party defended the government’s policy on SEZs, but with a rider. “Agricultural land should be acquired only as the last resort, and that too after paying handsome compensation package to the persons being displaced in the process,” Mr Naidu said.

The resolution outlined a 10-point programme to help overcome the problem. It includes evolving a long-term strategy to attain self-sufficiency in food production, extending the network of irrigation, exploration of the effectiveness of the “food stamp programme” strengthening the ``antyodaya anna yojana,’’vigorous implementation of the mid-day meal scheme, extending the reach of NREGA to cover all districts, amending the Indian Seed Act, implementation of the project on inter-linking rivers and further reduction of interest rates on agricultural loans.

The party blamed the faulty policies adopted by the UPA government in the past two years for the steep rise in prices of essential commodities –a trend which, it claimed, had laid bare the Congress’ boast of being the party of the aam aadmi.

And it attributed the upward climb in price-graph to the high-taxation budgets presented by the union finance minister in the past three years, failure to anticipate the food–shortage, which has given rise to speculative practices, hoarding and black-marketing, forward trading in essential commodities such as foodgrains, pulses, sugar, etc., unprecedented increase in the prices of petrol and diesel, distress purchase from the international market and the total collapse of the PDS system.