‘Not Okay When in Power in 2010, But Okay Ahead of 2024 Polls?’ Javadekar on Cong’s 'Duplicity, Hypocrisy & Fraud' on MSP

Former Union Minister Prakash Javadekar, whose 2010 Parliament question on Minimum Support Price (MSP) has gone viral, has called the Congress’s 180-degree turnaround on the issue a “fraud on the people”, while adding that people “remember everything”.

“I know very well that the Congress is not a pro-farmer party. We fought for farmers’ rights to get MSP and remunerative prices. What are remunerative prices? MS Swaminathan said cost plus 50% is the remunerative price. But that they (then UPA government) did not give. So I asked every year and they replied every year that they hadn’t accepted the recommendation. And now they are praising legal guarantee for MSP!” Javadekar told News18.

Several farmer associations have begun protests to demand a law guaranteeing a minimum support price (MSP), one of the conditions they had set when they agreed to withdraw their agitation against the now-repealed farm laws in 2021.

2010 QUESTION & 2024 PROMISE

In 2010, to a question by Javadekar, then an opposition leader, KV Thomas, then minister of state for agriculture KV Thomas, had told Parliament in a written answer: “The National Commission on Farmers under the Chairmanship of Prof. MS Swaminathan has recommended that the Minimum Support Price (MSP) should be at least 50 per cent more than the weighted average cost of production. This recommendation, however, has not been accepted by the government because MSP is recommended by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) based on objective criteria and considering a variety of relevant factors. Hence, prescribing an increase of at least 50 per cent in cost may distort the market. A mechanical linkage between MSP and cost of production may be counter-productive in some cases.”

Cut to 2024, the Congress is promising the moon to the farmers on MSP if it comes to power and even promised to put this in their manifesto.

“If the INDIA bloc comes to power after the general elections, we will give a legal guarantee to MSP. Whenever farmers have asked for something from Congress, it has been given to them. Be it loan waiver or MSP, we have always protected the interests of cultivators and will do so in the future,” Rahul Gandhi recently said.

NUMBERSPEAK

Javadekar has statistics ready to counter the Congress, “In 2012-13, they only gave only 8% above the cost for paddy, and 13% above the cost for wheat. Whereas PM Modi is giving not only 50%, but unto 100% of the cost of production”.

The Union Budget for 2018-19 under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had announced the pre-determined principle to keep MSP at levels of one-and-a-half times the cost of production. Accordingly, the government has increased MSPs for all mandated Kharif, Rabi, and other commercial crops with a return of at least 50 per cent of the cost of production for the agricultural year 2018-19.

But what about Gandhi turning soft on farmers now that the Congress is out of power? Javadekar called the Congress’ turnaround a display of “duplicity, hypocrisy and fraud”.

“They think people don’t remember. People remember everything,” he said.