Rahul Gandhi thinks many farmers haven't understood new laws. Here's why

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi hit out at the Narendra Modi-led central government on Thursday as he said the country is being operated by the Prime Minister in the interest of a few big businessmen. The Congress leader had earlier tweeted in the day that the Centre had allegedly ruined India's economy. “Mr Modi’s governance is a lesson in how to ruin one of the world’s fastest-growing economies,” he wrote.

Addressing a rally at his parliamentary constituency in Kerala’s Wayanad, Gandhi said, “You know the situation in the country today, it is clear for everybody to see what is going on. 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.” Sectors such as telecom, power, airports etc are being controlled by a limited number of people, he added.

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Quickly shifting focus towards the ongoing farmers’ agitation against the Centre’s farm reforms, Gandhi said that a majority of the farmers did not understand the details of the reforms and if they knew, there would have been an agitation all across and India would be on fire.

Referring to an incident from the past, Gandhi pointed out that there had been an attempt to attack the country’s farmers in Bhatta Parsaul. As a result, the Congress party came up with a Land Acquisition Bill that guaranteed compensation and protection to the farmers, he said. However, Gandhi alleged that Modi tried to kill this bill when he became the Prime Minister in 2014 and upon failing to defeat the bill in Parliament, Modi told his chief ministers to kill the bill in their respective states.

“We threw out the old British Bill and brought out a brand new Bill that guaranteed compensation & protection to our farmers...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,” Gandhi said.

The Congress leader is on a two-day visit to Kerala ahead of the assembly elections in the state scheduled for April-May. Earlier, he was on a three-day visit to the western belt in Tamil Nadu where he interacted with farmers, weavers and the public and also talked about the Congress’ alliance with Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) for the upcoming assembly elections.

Meanwhile, BJP leader and Union minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday sought an apology from Gandhi and alleged that the Congress had instigated the protesting farmers to carry out the tractor rally in Delhi on Republic Day (Tuesday). Javadekar further alleged that the main opposition party did not want the agitation to end adding that people would give it a befitting reply.