Bajwa demands apology from Modi for his government insulting farmers in Rajya Sabha

CHANDIGARH : The Punjab Congress President Mr Partap Singh Bajwa today demanded public apology from the Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi for his Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh insulting the farmers in the country by attributing their suicides to ‘drugs, love affairs and impotency’ in a written reply to a question. “It is shocking that Radha Mohan Singh today denied in his written reply that more than 1400 of the suicides by the farmers in the country were not due to financial distress because of staggering debt or crop loss due to adverse weather conditions but due to drugs and impotency etc. The Union Agriculture Minister has insulted the farming community in the entire country as the studies one after the other have pinpointed the cause of the increasing suicides to crisis in the farm sector”, he said.
Mr Bajwa expressed surprise that the Minister had referred to debt as only one of the reasons for these suicides along with family problems, illness, dowry, love affairs and impotency. This was not only clumsy but shameful, appalling and reprehensible cover up for a national tragedy with which those who feed the nation were confronted with.
He said the awfully disgusting statement made by the Union Agriculture Minister had exposed the disdain the farmers were being subjected to by this government as to also the thinking behind the bill to amend the land acquisition legislation which was an effort to wipe out the farmers themselves.
“What Mr Radha Mohan Singh has stated in the Rajya Sabha is part of the conspiracy to malign the farmers then grab their lands to please the corporate sector that funded the ruling party’s campaign”, he alleged.He said the investigation done by the three universities in Punjab on farmers suicides had referred to be debt burden as the main reason. Reports were appearing almost every day of farmers committing suicides and nowhere had it been mentioned that the reasons were some other frustrations rather than debt burden.The report revealed that 65.75 per cent of the farmers who committed suicide were in the age group of 30 to 60 years, while 59 were below 18 years of age. Even though 15 people took their lives every hour in 2014, the overall suicide figures witnessed a drop from 1,34,799 in 2013 to 1,31,666 in 2014, the NCRB said.He said the Modi government should hang its head in shame and the Prime Minister must apologize himself for this crime against farmers committed by his Agriculture Minister.