Rahul Gandhi promises legal guarantee for MSP, caste survey
Aurangabad/IBNS/UNI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Thursday promised a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP) and caste survey which would help in changing the fates of farmers, backward and deprived of society.
Gandhi, while addressing a public meeting as part of his ongoing 'Bharat Jodo Nyaya Yatra', here said that farmers were demanding legal guarantee for MSP of their produce and marching towards New Delhi from Punjab.
All sorts of police atrocities were being committed to stop them from marching ahead towards the National Capital, he alleged.
"Congress will give legal guarantee for MSP of agro produce to help farmers across the country", the party leader said, adding that instead of accepting their demands, the Narendra Modi government was suppressing their agitation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had no concern for farmers, he alleged.
The former AICC President said that the caste survey was a kind of social X-ray that would help in scanning a real picture of the social and economic condition of the people of various sections across the country.
"It was a fact that more than 70 percent of the people were backward, oppressed, and tribals but their stake in government and top-level administration was negligible," he said.
The Wayanad MP said his party would carry out a caste survey to determine the socio-economic condition of the people.
Presenting the prevailing scenario, he said that only three top-level IAS officials posted as secretaries in the central government belonged to backward classes.
Gandhi said that out of 650 high court judges in the country, only 100 of them were from backward classes. There was virtually no representation of backward and deprived in the top management of big corporate houses, he pointed out.
The Congress leader said that the annual budget of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MNREGA) scheme was only Rs. 70,000 crores meant for employing the poor.
"It is pathetic to point out that Narendra Modi government had waived off Rs. 14 lakh crores of big favourite corporate houses," he stated.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that the country was reeling under heavy debt of Rs. 185 lakh crores during the regime of Narendra Modi.
During the Congress regime, since Independence, India had taken a total loan of Rs 55,000 crores, he added.