Is Bharat Ratna to Swaminathan ploy to conceal Centre’s antifarmer stance: Sharad Pawar group

The Nationalist Congress PartySharadchandra Pawar on Sunday asked if the Narendra Modi government bestowed the Bharat Ratna on eminent agricultural scientist late Dr MS Swaminathan to divert attention from its antifarmer stance. One of the main demands of the farm outfits protesting currently is the implementation of the Minimum Support Price mechanism based on the formula of Swaminathan but the Center was unwilling to implement it, said Clyde Crasto, national spokesperson of the Sharad Pawar faction of the NCP.

“It is more than two weeks since the current farmers’ protest started. The farmers have been stopped by the government from entering Delhi and placing their demands. They protested in 202021 too and after many lives were lost, the government took back the three farm laws as demanded by the farmers,” he said in a statement.

The act of the Union government to give the Bharat Ratna, the country’s highest civilian award, to Swaminathan was to divert attention from their anti farmer stance, Crasto claimed. If the BJP truly believes in the move to give Bharat Ratna to Swaminathan, then it should also implement his MSP formula for the welfare of farmers, Crasto added.

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