New Delhi, Aug 21 (PTI) The Congress on Monday alleged that the now-withdrawn three farm laws were brought in by the Centre for the benefit of a handful of crony capitalists and that under the guise of doubling farmers' income, the government's plan was to corporatise agriculture.

Addressing a press conference at the AICC headquarters here, Congress MP Deepender Hooda asked that when a 3,000-page report of the Ashok Dalwai Committee was available, why did the BJP government, bypassing the rules, listen to a "non-expert NRI industrialist" and form a high level task force.

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"Was it created to crush the rights of farmers so that select billionaires can make profits?" Hooda asked.

Citing a report by the 'The Reporters Collective', he alleged that at the behest of the BJP government, the future of 62 crore farmers of the country was decided by 14 selected industrialists and "incompetent" people of BJP ecosystem by bringing the "three black laws".

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The intention was not to double the income of the farmers, "the income of the friends was to be quadrupled", Hooda said.

"The BJP government, which crushed the farmers under the vehicle, did not give cost plus 50 per cent MSP to the farmers, did not give any compensation to the martyred 750 farmers, nor kept a minute's silence for them in the Parliament," he alleged.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)