'Farmers don't understand new farm laws; if they did, India would be ablaze': Rahul Gandhi

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi interacted with representatives of various non-political, socio-cultural-religious and farmers' organisations in Kalpetta, at his Wayanad Lok Sabha constituency, on Thursday. In his address, he said that India is being run by the PM in the interest of 2-3 big businessmen. 'Every single industry today has a monopoly controlled by 3-4 people. Telecoms, Power, Infrastructure, Airports every single thing in India is controlled by limited people,' he said.

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Rahul Gandhi spoke about how he formulated the new Land Acquisition Bill after he noticed the farmers being attacked and their land being taken in Bhatta Parsaul. He accused PM Modi of trying to kill this bill as he came to power. 

"Some years ago I noticed there was an attempt to attack India's farmers. It started in Bhatta Parsaul when their land was just being taken away. I realised it was a problem & I started a conversation inside Congress party. Result of that was a new Land Acquisition Bill. We threw out the old British Bill & brought out a brand new Bill that guaranteed compensation & protection to our farmers. After this, I was attacked mercilessly. The first thing Narendra Modi Ji did when he became PM was trying to kill this Bill. We fought him in Parliament & stopped him from killing it."

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Rahul Gandhi said that most of the farmers do not understand the details of the new Farm bill because if they did, there would be an agitation all across the country.

"The truth is that most farmers do not understand the details of the Bill (the three Farm Laws), because if they did, there would be an agitation all across the country. The country would be on fire".

Gandhi further elaborated farmers the three farm bills:

• "The first bill is basically the idea to destroy the mandi."
• "The second bill allows a handful of businesses to store as much agricultural products as they want, so they will be able to control the price of the commodities and force the farmers to buy their goods"
• "The third bill basically says that the farmers can't go to court to protect themselves."

"The basic idea of the government is to handover the agricultural system of this country to 3-4 businessmen."

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Rahul Gandhi's 2-day Kerala visit

Tormer Congress president Raul Gandhi is on a two-day visit to Kerala ahead of the Assembly elections in the state scheduled for April-May. Several other programmes are lined up for him, including the inauguration of 12 houses built by INCAS Qatar at Panamaram, Koolivayal. On Thursday, he interacted with the representatives of various non-political, socio-cultural-religious and farmers' organisations at a government guesthouse in Kalpetta town of the district.

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(With ANI Inputs)