'Opposing what you advocated earlier': JP Nadda shares Rahul Gandhi's old speech on farm reforms
NEW DELHI: BJP president JP Nadda on Sunday shared an old video of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's speech in Lok Sabha in which he seems to be advocating the need for farmers to get rid of middlemen and sell their produce directly to industry. Nadda accused the Congress leader of playing politics over the ongoing farmers' protest.
"What is this magic happening Rahul ji. You are opposing now what you had advocated earlier. You have nothing to do with the country's or farmers' interests. You have to play politics only. But this is your bad luck that your hypocrisy will not work. People of the country and farmers have recognised your double standards," Nadda tweeted in Hindi along with the video clip.
Gandhi's speech in Lok Sabha, 2015, when he was an MP from Uttar Pradesh's Amethi, is doing rounds on the social media while people have been trolling him for his "contradictory" statement.
The now Wayanad MP is slamming the Central government to withdraw the farm laws that have given the freedom to every farmer in the country to sell their produce anywhere.
"When he asked what they thought was the reason for this, the farmer said factories are located very far from them and if they could sell their produce directly there, they will get all the money without middlemen earning any cut," Gandhi is heard saying in the short video posted by Nadda.
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The Congress has backed the farmers' protest against three agriculture-marketing laws which give cultivators an option to sell their produce directly to private players.
"That was the idea behind a food park, and this is in a way what farmers and labourers of Amethi and 10-12 districts of Uttar Pradesh have been fighting for," he says in the clip. Gandhi had accused the Modi government during its first term of shelving the food park project in Amethi. The government had denied the charge and said the park never had land.
Netizens of Twitter have widely shared Gandhi's speech delivered in 2015 Lok Sabha session, trolling him for his 'contradictory' statements over Centre's farm laws.
"Rahul Gandhi himself said in the Parliament that farmers should get a chance to sell their produce directly to companies. Rahul Gandhi, the farm laws are giving this opportunity to the farmers. So why do you have an objection now?" people Tweeted.
Agitating farmers have argued that these laws are aimed at weakening the existing government's support for the farm sector, a charge denied by the Centre.