Gandhinagar: Deputy CM Nitin Patel today said that the Khedut Aakrosh Rally of Congress party was not about the anger of farmer community but was seemingly about the party’s own annoyance at the fact that it could not come to power in Gujarat despite attempting all kind of tactics in last assembly election.

Talking to newsmen here Patel said that the Congress party has no interest in actually solving the farmer’s problems. It was only interested in take political mileage of it.

He said that the BJP government in the state has taken a lot of steps for farmers including supply of irrigation water, extending hours of electricity supply etc and was taking several others.

‘BJP has never in its over 2 decade rule in Gujarat committed any excess on farmers while Congress in the past during its rule had committed several excesses and even ordered the police to open fire on them. During the farmers meeting in Mahesana years ago, such was the proportion of excess and police action during Congress rule that a truck load of footwear were later recovered from the venue,’ he said.

He said that both the Congress president in Gujarat and LoP were young and had not seen those days. ‘They should look at the assembly records and newspapers of those days to understand the kind of excesses that their party had committed on farmers,’ the deputy CM said.

Patel also said that the party was seemingly angry at the fact that it could not come to power despite all sort of tactics including creating caste-divide during the last assembly election. Now they were trying to express that anger under the garb of farmer’s issues. The party was doing all this with eye on next Loksabha polls and hope to somehow do better.

‘Had the party been really interested in solving the farmer’s issues Congress leaders and MLAs would have approached the ministers and other authorities directly on the issues rather than unnecessary events like assembly gherao which has become a kind of routine event for them each time the house is convened. They had announced similar gherao during last assembly also.,’ he said.

The deputy CM claimed that the rally of congress today had a very thin presence and among those present there were hardly any farmer. ‘ Farmers are aware of the steps being taken by BJP government Many of them were urban people brought by people there,’ he claimed.

DeshGujarat