Varun Gandhi demands legal guarantee for MSP | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI- The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP from Pilibhit Varun Gandhi on Friday demanded a legal guarantee for the minimum support price (MSP), saying farmers will continue to be exploited in ‘mandis’ as long as this is not done.
In a video tweeted by him, he wrote that there’s a “crippling corruption” in procurement centres which is completely out in the open and the farmers are forced to sell their grains to middlemen.

He also posted a video of him speaking apparently to a government official at a mandi in Bareilly. Raising the issue of hardship facing farmers, Gandhi is heard saying that it is a matter of “big shame” for the state government.

The farmers are being forced to sell their gains at a much lower price due to the “nexus” between the officials and the middlemen, Gandhi said.
He also warned that he will move court and get the officials arrested if his representative records any evidence of corruption or ill-treatment to farmers.
“At every procurement centre in the state there is crippling corruption which is completely out in the open. Farmers’ grains are forcibly rejected after which they sell their produce out of desperation to middlemen. The administration takes a cut,” he alleged.
“With farmers already facing steep input costs, lack of fertilisers and inclement weather, saddling him with a system that ensures he sells at a loss is going to drive the next generation away from agriculture and threaten both our food and national security. It will also lead to social unrest and create fissures where none need exist,” he added.
Last week too, Gandhi shared a video on social media, showing a farmer from the Lakhimpur Kheri district set fire to his paddy crop after he failed to sell it at a procurement centre in Uttar Pradesh.
He said there is a need to ‘rethink the agriculture policy’ and warned the government to leave the ways of repression and stop scaring farmers as they can’t be scared.
(With agency inputs)