Rahul Gandhi chides Centre for not having list of deceased farmers eligible for ex-gratia

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday held a press conference, during which he chided the Centre for not having the list of deceased farmers eligible compensation

New Delhi: In a scathing attack, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday told the central government if it did not have the list of farmers who died during protests, he can provide them with one.

Gandhi, while addressing a Press conference on Friday said, "Today I want to speak about farmers. A few days back, a question was being asked in the Parliament if Centre is going to give a compensation to those farmers who have died during their protest. But an answer was being given that Centre has no data of farmers who died.

"We did a research. Punjab Govt has 403 names to whom we have given 5 lakh compensation, 152 have been given jobs and rest will also get the same. So we can give a list of farmers to the Centre if it can give compensation."

He further alleged that the Centre has not expressed condolences for the death of protesting farmers.

"Punjab Govt is not responsible to deaths of these farmers, you know who is responsible? It is PM's personal mistake so why is he not having the dignity to give compensation?", the Congress leader further said.

"You simply don't want to accept that people have died. This should not be the way how a PM should react. This is very unpleasant, and cowardly way to behave", he said, further slamming the Prime Minister for the farmers' deaths.

Gandhi also commented on the new Omicron strain of Covid-19 that was recently tracked in India, asking people to tread carefully when considering the booster dose as a possible precautionary measure.

"We have to be careful on how we are thinking about vaccination and to think about the booster dose as it has been said that these vaccines are not very much effective in this new strain", he said.