Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin on Saturday accused the BJP dispensation at the Centre of being hostile to farmers and said unlike it (the BJP government) his government will always remain a friend of the farmers. He claimed that the DMK government since the rule of former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, who waived off crop loans to the tune of Rs 7,000 crore when he came to power in 2006, has been friendly and supportive of the ryots.
"The DMK government has been respecting farmers and striving towards their well-being and will always be a friend of the farmers," the Chief Minister said, speaking after inaugurating a two-day agriculture festival organised by the Agriculture department here. He said the BJP government brought in three farm laws against the farmers' interests and made the latter protest in the national capital for months in the scorching heat and shivering cold. "Only after several farmers lost their lives and seeing their unwavering determination, the Centre relented and retracted the farm laws. This is an anti-farmer BJP government," Stalin said.
In the last one-and-a-half years after coming to power, the DMK government set a record by providing over 1.5 lakh free power connections to farmers. The development of the agriculture sector is connected with the lives and livelihoods of the people and is a measure of a country's prosperity, he said and quoted Tamil poetess Avvaiyar (varappuyara neer uyarum....kon uyarvaan) to say that a raised bund would impound more water to irrigate crop and this would, in turn, facilitate all-round prosperity.