Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “guarantee” has run into the barbed wires, nails and concrete boulders of his track record.

The Congress on Wednesday recalled how many times Modi, since his days as Gujarat chief minister, had advocated and promised MSP (minimum support price) and went back on his words after becoming Prime Minister. It is not open to dispute that Modi endeared himself to the farmers in north India only through his public pledge for 50 per cent profit over input cost and doubling their income by 2022.

As farmers trying to reach Delhi struggled for the second day to cross the concrete boulders, barbed wires and nails planted on the roads apart from fierce police resistance and teargas shells, Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh said: “Why is Modi running away from his repeated promise to give legal guarantee for MSP? Modi has lied so many times that the farmers have lost trust in him.”

Ramesh said: “Modi submitted a report to the Manmohan Singh government in 2011 as the chairperson of a working group (in his capacity as Gujarat chief minister) recommending a law for MSP. He repeated at several public rallies in the run-up to the 2014 parliamentary election that input cost plus 50 per cent profit (based on Swaminathan Commission recommendations) will be given for all crops. But nothing has been delivered even as we are in 2024.”

Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera played several videos showing Modi’s emphatic declarations on MSP and Swaminathan Commission recommendations at a media conference and said: “Is it not true that the then chief minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, being the chairman of the Report of Working Group on Consumer Affairs, in March 2011, had said that ‘higher prices would motivate farmers to increase the production’?”

Khera added: “The report directly talked about implementing MSP — ‘The market intervention for perishable products could also be introduced on cost sharing basis by government of India with the states. Since intermediaries play a vital role in the functioning of the market and at times they have advance contract with farmers. In respect of all essential commodities, we should protect farmers’ interests by mandating through statutory provisions that no farmer-trader transaction should be below MSP, wherever prescribed’. Is Modi now going back on his own recommendations and opposing them?”

Wondering what forced Modi’s somersault, Khera said: “The first U-turn came when his government said in an affidavit in the Supreme Court that giving 50 per cent profit plus input cost was impossible. Is it not true that on July 3, 2016, the Union ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare, in response to an RTI query, said that 50 per cent profit on the input cost of crops can lead to market distortion? This was a clear betrayal. As if that was not bad enough, on November 19, 2021, Modi was pleading with farmers with folded hands to end their protest as he was withdrawing his farm laws. He announced a committee to decide on MSP legislation. What happened in the last two years?”