Arjun Munda: ‘(On Hemant Soren issue) no one will support corruption, and more evidence is coming after seizure of crores’

Union agriculture and tribal affairs minister Arjun Munda, 56, is againtaking on Congress leader Kali Charan Munda in the Lok Sabha elections from the Khunti seat in Jharkhand, where he had managed to defeat the latter by just 1,445 votes in the 2019 polls. Senior BJP leader Arjun Munda had been a three-time Jharkhand chief minister.

In an interview with The Indian Express, he speaks on multiple issues ranging from farmers’ welfare and tribals’ concerns to corruption.

Excerpts:

* One year has passed since eruption of violence in Manipur, but many tribals complain that the Union tribal minister hasn’t said anything about it.

This is not the context of this interview. We will talk about it later.

* As the agriculture minister, is there any proposal to give a legal guarantee to MSP for crops, or anything being done to ensure assured income to farmers since many of them are turning into labourers with the climate change exacerbating the crisis?

The basic thing is that by MSP the farmers will get a minimum income for their produce in an open market. However, it is not that all produce will be procured by the government. So the government has given MSP for major crops. We have formed a committee for a long-term solution and their suggestions will focus on the issue of increasing produce in India and reducing the dependency on pesticides and chemical fertilisers. Unlike the last government, we are not working to do any favour to farmers but on how do we raise the potential of farmers and the farming community. Regarding giving MSP a legal guarantee, there is an expert committee which will look into it.

* Tribals generally suffer from malnutrition and anaemia. And in Jharkhand, too, there has hardly been any improvement on these