What did Pawar do as agri minister for 10 yrs, asks Shah

Shah said the soldiers and farmers are important for the country, adding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi created the cooperatives department for the development of farmers.
Amit Shah at Venkateshwara Cooperative soil and water testing lab in Nashik.
Amit Shah at Venkateshwara Cooperative soil and water testing lab in Nashik.Photo | PTI
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MUMBAI: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday attacked NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar, saying he failed to do anything for the cooperative sector during his 10-year tenure as the agriculture minister in the UPA government at the Centre.

Shah said the soldiers and farmers are important for the country, adding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi created the cooperatives department for the development of farmers. “Farmers are now being developed through the cooperative department. Sharad Pawar was the agriculture minister at the Centre for 10 years, what he did for the country? He could not even make a separate cooperative department for the farmers,” Shah said while inaugurating a soil-testing centre for farmers at Ajang in Nasik.

“What did Mr Pawar do for sugar factories, farmers, cooperatives? He only marketed himself as a leader of the co-operative sector. But what did he do for this sector? It’s easy to become a leader through marketing, but you have to work on the ground. PM Narendra Modi is working to connect farmers with multinational companies and develop them,” he said.

“Lal Bahadur Shastri had given the slogan ‘Jai Jawan Jai Kisan’. Modi gave the slogan ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan and Jai Vigyan’. Agriculture becomes profitable if cooperation and science are combined. When Modi started soil testing, farmers understood which crops to grow on which soil. They get information about the pH level of water, whether to add sulfur or not…Agriculture and science together will usher prosperity and better livelihood to farmers,” Shah said.

“The money generated by selling agricultural products by establishing an organic corporation will go to the farmers’ accounts,” Shah said, appealing to farmers to produce products with organic certificates.

Amit Shah said, “Modi created the cooperative department after 75 years of Independence. The beautiful definition of self-reliance is cooperation. This is what makes farmers prosperous. I saw the ponds with a storage capacity of 73 crore litres of water. There is good work of drip irrigation. The work of connecting farmers through organic farming is going on here. Along with this, the work of connecting the soldiers of the country was done.”

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