On the sixth anniversary of the Mandsaur police firing in which six farmers were killed, former chief minister and Madhya Pradesh Congress head Kamal Nath said he has ‘no hope for justice from the farmers’ killers’. Nath mentioned the word ‘killer’ to the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan led BJP government and accused it of saving those who opened fire on protesting farmers.
Addressing a gathering of local famers of Mandsaur and party workers on Tuesday, Kamal Nath said six years have passed since six farmers of Mandsaur were killed in police firing but the BJP government did not submit reports in the assembly. “Farmers were protesting for ‘samarthan moolya’ for their crops, but they were killed by the BJP government. What is more horrible is that not a single report of that incident has been placed in the assembly so far. I have no hope for justice from those who killed farmers,” Nath said while addressing the gathering on the occasion of the sixth anniversary of the incident on Tuesday.
Nath added that the BJP government wanted to save the culprits. “It is the responsibility of all of us to overthrow such an anti-farmer government. On the anniversary of the farmers’ massacre, I pay my humble tribute to all the martyred farmers,” he said.
Nath held CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan responsible for the distress of farmers in Madhya Pradesh. He claimed that the income of Madhya Pradesh’s farmers has plunged to very low levels among all the major states of the country.
“The Congress government had promised to waive off farmers’ loans, and 27000 farmers have benefitted, but our government was toppled through a conspiracy. Lakhs of farmers have become defaulters. The Shivraj government has also stopped the loan waiver for the farmers,” Nath said.
On June 6, 2016, six farmers were killed in police firing at Piplia Mandi in Mandsaur district. The farmers were protesting in support of their demands, which included better price for their produce.
On the anniversary of the firing last year, the then Congress president Rahul Gandhi had launched his party’s campaign for the Madhya Pradesh assembly polls from Mandsaur and announced a “farm loan waiver” within ten days of his party coming to power in the state.
In the November 2018 assembly polls, the Congress wrested power from the BJP in Madhya Pradesh after a gap of 15 years. However, after coming to power, the then Home Minister Bala Bachchan had given a clean chit to the MP police.
Bala Bachchan had in 2019 informed the House that the police action was valid and they followed standard procedure. They did it in self-defence and to protect private and public property, he said.
Meanwhile, the state BJP unit accused the Congress of playing politics over the deaths of farmers. “Congress is doing dirty politics on the deaths of farmers. People of Mandsaur are well aware of the Congress greed for power, which is why they voted for the BJP in 2018 and the Lok Sabha polls in 2019,” the BJP MP said.
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