Farmer's Suicide Has Nothing to do with Land Bill: Venkaiah - The New Indian Express

HYDERABAD:Union parliamentary affairs minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday made it clear that the suicide by Gajendra Singh, a farmer from Rajasthan, had nothing to do with land bill.

“There is no relation between the farmer’s suicide that took place at AAP public meeting in Delhi and the land bill,” he asserted.

Speaking to reporters here, Venkaiah Naidu accused the Congress of unnecessarily raking up the suicide issue to mislead the people.

“Let us not politicise the suicide of the farmer. We should not derail the confidence of the farmers. Government, political parties and people should stand behind farmers and support them,” Naidu said.

Blaming the Congress for the present state of farmers in the country, the Union minister said farmers’ suicide is not a new phenomena in the country as such incidents have been taking place for the past few years. “Congress should not forget that during UPA rule, every year over 10,000 farmers used to commit suicide,” he pointed out.

“Opposition parties should stop politicising the issue and work with the government to find solution to the problem,” he suggested.

Accusing Congress of using land bill as a tool to revive the party, Venkaiah Naidu made it clear that there was no question of government going back on the bill.

He said since the Congress had lost the confidence of the people, it was trying to win them back by misleading them on land bill. “Land bill is in the interest of the farmers. It is the need of the hour to pass the land bill for the development of the country,” Naidu said. Making a fervent appeal to the opposition parties to support the land bill, he said since land is an essential requirement for taking up developmental works such as construction of airports, railway lines, highways and houses, there was a need to amend the land bill to speed up the projects.

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