New Delhi: Keeping the heat on the government after the talks with the protesting farmers failed, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram Monday took a snipe at Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and suggested she take a walk, barefoot, in the agriculture-dependent villages of India to understand the problems of the protesting farmers.
Alleging the government of not being in sink with the reality that the farmers undergo, Chidambaram tweeted: "FM and her team should take a walk, barefoot, in the agriculture-dependent villages of India."
Chidambaram went on to add: "They should also visit tenements of the lower middle class and the poor in cities and towns and find out what they earn, eat, wear etc."
Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and parts of UP have been protesting at Delhi's borders for over two months now, demanding a rollback of the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.
The government has offered some concessions, including keeping the new farm laws on hold for 1-1.5 years and the Supreme Court has set up a panel to look into the matter while keeping the contentious legislation in abeyance for two months.
The agitating farmer unions, however, have rejected both and intensified their stir.
