The Congress has exposed the lies of the BJP Government in Uttar Pradesh when the latter claimed that it has provided all help to potato growers and was the first state to declare Minimum Support Price (MSP) for the farmers.

In a systematic campaign, the Congress has unraveled as to how the farmers feel cheated by the Government which had claimed that it will purchase 1 lakh metric tonnes of potato from the farmers by setting up purchase centres in their respective villages.

“A visit to the potato belt of Uttar Pradesh is an eye opener. The growers are not getting the cost price. They are suffering but the Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath sitting in Lucknow claims that all is well with the farmers,” Ajay Kumar Lallu, Leader, Congress Legislature Party in Vidhan Sabha, told this reporter.

The Congress leader visited the potato belt for three days where he met the growers, cold storage owners and consumers. He went to Etah, Kannauj, Farrukhabad, Etawah and Mainpuri. “The visit was an eye opener. I can only one thing that this government is turning the potato belt into another Bundelkhand where farmers are dying of hunger,” he said.

In April, after one of the state Cabinet meetings, the government spokesman announced a MSP of Rs 487 per quintal for potato. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath then declared that Government would purchase a minimum of 1 lakh meteric tones of potatoes. He also said that purchase centres would be set up in all the gram sabhas so that farmers could sell their potatoes easily.

BJP leaders harped on these announcements as an achievement of the government. Time and again party spokesman and ministers claimed it to be a krantikari (revolutionary) decision. Everytime they put halo on the head of Yogi Adityanath saying “this has never happened before.”