Calcutta, July 20: Agriculture minister Kamal Guha today called sections of his own government “dalals (touts)” of multinationals.

Guha, who had embarrassed the government several times in the past and resisted efforts to introduce reforms in the farm sector following recommendations of consultants McKinsey, accused Writers’ Buildings of trying to create confusion about farmers.

“There are many dalals (of McKinsey and the MNCs) here and there,” Guha told the Assembly, pointing his fingers as much at the treasury benches as the Opposition. He was responding to Opposition queries on whom he was referring to as a tout.

Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had engaged McKinsey to suggest ways to develop agro-industry and the information technology sector in the state.

The McKinsey recommendations came in handy last year when the government was drawing up a new market-driven farm policy. Guha had opposed the new policy on several occasions and forced certain revisions.

“We warded off the MNCs and McKinsey because they were spreading wrong information about farmers and agriculture in Bengal,” the Forward Bloc leader said today.

A farmer in Cooch Behar, he added, took seeds from his department and sowed wheat late in December last year when they were supposed to be sown by November. “The crop failed and the farmer set fire to his paddy in April” but the incident was made to look like a fallout of poor quality seeds, Guha said during the debate on his department’s budget.

In the course of his speech, the minister admitted that there were deaths because of poverty and malnutrition in the tea gardens of north Bengal.