Union Home Minister Amit Shah fired back at Congress doomsayers Sunday, insisting India’s fresh trade ties with America and Europe fully insulate farmers from risks. Post the unveiling of India’s inaugural digital rupee PDS in Gandhinagar, Shah unpacked the safeguards embedded in these pacts for farming, milk production, and fishing communities.
He ridiculed Rahul Gandhi’s parliamentary posturing on farmer safety as comical, charging Congress with a legacy of national deception now extended to trade deal misinformation. ‘PM Narendra Modi guaranteed your interests in every EU and US negotiation,’ Shah affirmed to the audience.
Spotlighting fiscal strides, he compared UPA’s meager Rs 26,000 crore agri outlay to the NDA’s Rs 1.29 lakh crore commitment. Foodgrain buys under MSP have multiplied 15 times in the last ten years.
Dismissing 70 years of Congress loan waiver rhetoric as hollow, Shah touted direct Rs 6,000 transfers that bypass moneylenders. Countering dairy vulnerability claims, he stressed comprehensive protections across agreements, bolstering rather than undermining the sector.
Shah threw down the gauntlet for a public face-off with Gandhi, backed by BJP’s youth brigade. Contextually, this follows Modi’s Trump dialogue birthing a US pact and the prior month’s EU free trade finale. Shah’s narrative reframes trade as opportunity, not peril, for India’s agrarian backbone.