Pawan Khera: Rahul Gandhi was threatened over BJP’s larger 'anti-farmer' agenda, not just 2020 laws

New Delhi, Aug 2 As the ruling BJP and the Congress on Saturday locked horns over Rahul Gandhi’s claim of receiving threats from Late Union minister Arun Jaitley over the farm laws, the grand old party claimed that the episode was a failed bid to silence their leader on his pro-farmer agenda.

While Jaitley’s son strongly rebutted Gandhi’s claims, the Congress put its weight behind the Leader of Opposition, claiming that the controversial threat aimed at silencing him was made at the behest of top BJP leaders.

Pawan Khera, Chairman, Media and Publicity Department, AICC, said in a post on X, “What matters is not who conveyed the threat but on whose behalf was it being conveyed. The hand behind it was the Modi-Shah duo.”

Khera said, “The intention of the threats was to silence us but they have only ever strengthened our resolve.”

“This was never about one Bill or one Act - it was about crushing Rahul Gandhi’s fierce, unyielding defence of India’s farmers or the Indian people in general,” wrote Khera on X.

The political storm on Saturday erupted after Gandhi said at the party’s Annual Legal Conclave 2025 that Arun Jaitley had threatened him with action if he carried on the protest against the three farm laws.

Hours later, Rohan Jaitley expressed shock and disappointment over Gandhi's remarks and said, “The farm laws that Rahul Gandhi is referring to were passed in 2020, more than a year after my father's demise in August 2019. My father had been unwell for several months before his death. So, the question of him threatening anyone on this issue simply does not arise.”

A little later, Khera took to social media and countered Rohan Jaitley by presenting the chain of events that led to the threatening episode mentioned by Gandhi.

Khera said, “The Farm Laws of 2020 were not the only anti-farmer legislations of the BJP government. They were the culmination of a long, deliberate, anti-farmer agenda that the BJP government had been cooking up in its cauldron of destructive policy.”

“The first blow came in December 2014 itself, when Modi resorted to diluting the Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation Bill of 2013. Then in 2017 came the so‑called Model Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing Act - another backdoor assault on farmers’ rights,” he said.

The chief of AICC Media and Publicity Department said, “The Congress, led by Rahul Gandhi, vehemently opposed these anti-farmer laws. It is in this context that the late Arun Jaitley came to 10 Janpath to meet Rahul Gandhi carrying a threat. But he forgot that Rahul Ji is a Gandhi, not a Savarkar.”

--IANS

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