The Congress on Monday sharpened its attack on the US trade deal, accusing the Centre of misrepresenting specific details about the pact and pointing out the "contradictions" in the government’s narrative.
Congress MP and general secretary Randeep Surjewala claimed the Centre was misleading citizens about keeping key agricultural products out of the deal.
“The BJP government and the commerce minister are suffering from selective amnesia and are misleading out of political dishonesty to dupe and deceive the public at large and farmers.... Where is the written word based on which they are saying they have not permitted the import of jowar (sorghum)? The agreement says India will eliminate restrictions on red sorghum.... Is the minister lying or is the agreement a fake one?” Surjewala told reporters.
“They (Centre) speak about not permitting genetically modified crops in India. But when you’re permitting American sorghum to come in, when you’re permitting American maize... is America certifying that whatever they are sending is non-GM? Will it not corrupt our seed lineage as well as the diversity of our indigenous seeds?” he said.
Commerce minister Piyush Goyal had on February 7 said all commodities in which India was self-sufficient had been excluded from the scope of the trade deal. “For example, no GM-derived, genetically modified product will enter India.... Millets such as jowar, bajra, ragi, kodo and amaranth — no exemption has been granted on them,” he had said.
The India-US joint statement on the same day said: “India will eliminate or reduce tariffs on all US industrial goods and a wide range of US food and agricultural products, including dried distillers’ grains (DDGs), red sorghum for animal feed, tree nuts, fresh and processed fruit, soybean oil, wine and spirits, and additional products.”
Asked about the muted farmer protests compared with the agitation against the farm laws in 2020-21, Surjewala told The Telegraph: “They are also understanding and regrouping. This is not as simple.”
On whether the Congress would revoke the agreement if ever elected to power at the Centre, he said: “National interest is paramount. The Congress will never permit anything that is against the national interest, no matter what the cost.”
The Congress has kept up the pressure on the Centre by linking the mention of minister Hardeep Puri in the Epstein files with the US trade deal.
“On February 13, 2025, Modi went to the US.... The US President and Modi issued a joint statement and said the two countries would take mutual trade to $500 billion,” Surjewala said. “What happened in one year? Now, he says that India will buy US goods worth $500 billion every year.”
Surjewala reiterated Rahul Gandhi’s questions to the Centre on DDGs, GM crops, the mention of “additional products” in the joint statement, and “non-trade barriers” that he fears will jeopardise minimum support prices (MSPs).