NEW DELHI: Hitting out at the Centre over the farmers’ protests, the Congress on Wednesday asked why it is “running away” from giving a legal guarantee on MSP despite repeated promises and claimed the farmers have “lost faith” in the Modi government.Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also spoke with a farmer injured in police action during a protest march and accused the Modi government of having a “dictatorial attitude” towards the country’s food providers.In a post in Hindi on X, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh asked why the Modi government is “running away” from giving a legal guarantee on the Minimum Support Price for crops despite repeated promises.”In 2011, Narendra Modi, as Gujarat chief minister and chairman of a working group, had submitted a report to the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, which said that ‘In order to protect the interest of the farmers, we must ensure through legal provisions that no transaction between farmer and trader should be done below MSP’,” he said.In many of his speeches and election rallies during the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign, Modi had promised that all crops would be purchased at MSP, which would cover all costs and a 50 percent margin as per the Swaminathan Committee formula, Ramesh said.”But till date, there is neither legal guarantee of MSP nor is it based on the Swaminathan formula of C2+50%,” he said.
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