New Delhi: Congress leader Shri Rahul Gandhi on December 3, 2021, slammed the Centre for saying there was ‘no record’ of farmers’ deaths during farm laws agitation, and said that the Punjab government has identified 403 people. Addressing a press briefing at the party headquarters, Shri Rahul Gandhi accused the Centre of “lying” and demanded compensation for the farmers who lost their lives during the agitation.

I wanted to talk about farmers today. A few days back a question was asked in the Parliament House. The question was whether the National Government was going to give compensation to our 700 farmers who died during the farmers movement - yes or no and the answer was that the Government of India had no record of the dead farmers. They neither know which 700 farmers were martyred during the movement, nor their names. They do not know anything. Let me read the exact question “Whether the government proposes to provide financial assistance to the kin of farmers, who died during the said agitation, if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefore” and the Ministry answers, “The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has no record in the matter and hence the question does not arise”.

If there is no record then why compensation and for whom? So, we worked a little. Now the government of Punjab has 403 names. Our government has given compensation of Rs. 5 lakh per family to them and we have given jobs to 152 family members and we are going to give jobs to the rest of the people. So, the first thing is that 500 out of 700 are here, their names, addresses, phone numbers. So, this is the list. The government is saying that it does not have a list, so take this list. These are 500 names. The rest are with us from public records. Verify them and give compensation to the families of 700 farmers.

The point is that the government has no record of how many people died in Corona. The government has no record of how many farmers died. The reason is that you do not want to spare even a penny as compensation to these people. You did not even observe silence for two minutes for them in the Parliament, when they were martyred. So, I wanted to say here that this is actually wrong. The government has the record and if it wants, it can take the list from us and give compensation to these 700 families.