Union Fertilizer Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and Samajwadi Party president and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav locked horns in social media on January 11 over the price of urea. Mr. Yadav alleged that the Centre is exploiting farmers by making urea costlier, a charge denied by Mr. Mandaviya, who asked the SP leader to not mislead farmers.
Mr. Yadav said in a social media post on “X” that the BJP government has become synonymous with exploitation of farmers. “The bag of urea has now reduced in weight to 40 kg. The farmer understands this simple mathematics very well that earlier ₹266.50 kg of urea would cost 45 kg i.e. one kg urea would cost around ₹5.92 but now 40 kg would cost ₹266.50 i.e. an increase of around ₹6.66 per kg. Urea has become costlier by more than 12%. If this ‘sack theft’ continues under the BJP rule, then one day farmers will get only empty sacks,” he said, adding that in the upcoming elections, farmers will defeat the BJP’s anti-farmer politics.
Responding to this, Mr. Mandaviya said neem-coated urea was priced at ₹266.5 per 45 kg bag earlier and at present and would continue to be available in the future too. He said with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mission to promote science, the Centre had created a new sulphur-coated ‘Gold Urea’ in the interest of farmers whose quantity and price had been decided. “Even during COVID, you raised questions on the vaccine made in the country, which the country and our scientists have not been able to forget. Today again you have made fun of the same scientists. I hope that you will not mislead the farmers and will work together in the interest of the farmers,” the Minister added.
Mr. Yadav, however, had not clarified whether he was mentioning about the price of neem-coated urea or the sulphur-coated urea. The sulphur-coated urea is expensive than the neem-coated urea.
