CHANDIGARH: Senior Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Saturday launched a sharp attack on the BJP government in Haryana, alleging that 70% of paddy procurement remained pending across the state’s mandis. Addressing mediapersons alongside Thanesar MLA Ashok Arora at his residence, Hooda demanded a white paper on the state’s claim of providing Minimum Support Price (MSP) for 24 crops.Hooda highlighted that while paddy arrivals in mandis had touched 12 lakh metric tonnes, the government had procured only 30% of the crop. “Out of the procured stock, merely 17% has been lifted, leaving mandis completely choked with no storage space,” Hooda stated, citing administrative hurdles such as portal delays, gate passes, capping and verification backlogs affecting lakhs of acres.The former chief minister alleged that, due to the lack of timely state intervention, distressed farmers were being forced to sell paddy at rates ₹400 below the MSP, while pearl millet (bajra) was trading ₹800–₹900 below its fixed rate of ₹2,900 per quintal. “The CM promised ₹3,100 per quintal during elections, but farmers are struggling to even get the standard MSP of ₹2,441,” he added, citing severe losses in moong and bajra.He further pointed to an artificial shortage of fertilisers, noting that against an October allocation of 3.50 lakh metric tonnes of urea and 1.5 lakh metric tonnes of DAP, only 67,000 MT and 38,000 MT, respectively, had been lifted.Echoing similar concerns, MLA Ashok Arora remarked that bureaucratic bottlenecks were being deliberately created to force farmers into distress sales, ultimately benefiting private traders.Taking a political turn, Hooda called upon citizens and supporters to assemble in Delhi on October 12 to join the INDIA bloc’s agitation demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over electoral integrity issues. He framed the agitation as a critical battle to safeguard democracy.
