BJP MP Varun Gandhi posted online a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, listing four big demands following the centre’s repeal of the controversial farm laws.
In the letter, the MP reminded the Prime Minister that had he taken the decision earlier, over 700 farmers would have still been alive. He therefore demanded ₹ 1 crore compensation for those who died in the course of the year-long protest.
He also demanded that all “all politically motivated false” police cases filed against farmers must be dropped and their calls for widening the programme of guaranteed prices for farm produce known as Minimum Support Price or MSP be accepted. He believes that their movement wouldn’t end without it.
“I thank you for your large-heartedness in announcing that these three laws will be repealed. More than 700 of our farmer brothers and sisters have been martyred in this movement, as they peacefully protested in extremely difficult and hostile conditions. I believe that if this decision had been taken earlier, all these innocent lives would not have been lost,” he wrote.
“All politically motivated false FIRs that have been registered as weapons of harassment against our farmers during this movement must immediately be quashed,” he said.
“This (farmers’) movement will not end without the resolution of this demand and there will be widespread anger amongst them, which will continue to emerge in one form or the other. Therefore, it is very important for the farmers to get the statutory guarantee of MSP for their crops. The MSP should also be based on the C2+50% formula of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices,” he wrote.
While also raising the deaths of protesters in Uttar Pradesh’s Lakhimpur Kheri last month, the MP wrote, “Many leaders sitting in senior positions have given provocative statements against our agitating farmers. It is the result of such statements and the adversarial atmosphere created around the movement, that on October 3, five of our farmer brothers were crushed to death by vehicles in Lakhimpur Kheri. This heartbreaking incident is a blemish on our democracy. It is my request to you that appropriately strict action is taken against the Union Minister who has been connected to this incident, so that there is a fair enquiry.”
The BJP MP, who was dumped from his party’s National Executive has of late become a sharp critic and has been increasingly offering views divergent from his party.
