Farmers Movement Archive

Three laws offer no benefits to farmers, says Arvind Kejriwal; AAP MPs target PM Modi

NEW DELHI: Questioning the benefits of the three agri laws after PM Narendra Modi’s speech to the farmers, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday maintained that the legislations were not beneficial in any way and farmers would get only half the price for their produce if they sold it outside the mandis. Kejriwal tweeted: “BJP says that these (farm) laws do not have any disadvantage for farmers. But what are the advantages? They say now farmers can sell their produce anywhere outside the mandi. But the produce fetches only half the price outside mandis. How is this an advantage?” Meanwhile, AAP MPs Sanjay Singh and Bhagwant Mann on Friday raised slogans in front of the PM in the central hall of Parliament demanding withdrawal of the three farm laws. At a press conference, Mann said, “The PM is so egoistic that he did not listen to us. After the celebration of the birth anniversaries of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee and educational reformer Mahamana Madan Mohan Malviya, we tried to reach out to him and raised slogans reiterating the demands of the farmers. We were also carrying posters on these demands. I tried to tell him that thousands of farmers were sitting at the borders of Delhi in this winter for over a month and suffering due to the non-empathetic attitude of the government. They have been demanding immediate rollback of these anti-farmer laws.” “The PM neither meets the farmers nor the Opposition members, so there are no other means to bring the voice of the farmers in front of him. In future too, if need arises, we will raise our voice in front of Modi amid such programmes. The government must immediately call a special session of Parliament and roll back these anti-farmer laws,” added Mann. The Sangrur MP said, “PM Modi goes to Gujarat to meet the farmers of his choice, but does not interact with thousands of farmers sitting 20km from his house. The BJP government is not ready to call a special session of Parliament and has been citing the Covid-19 pandemic for not holding it. However, the party has not shied away from holding rallies with thousands of people in West Bengal.” Slamming Congress party, Mann said, “There seems to be a settlement between Congress and BJP. When we were raising our demands in front of the PM, Congress MP Ghulam Nabi Azad and his party colleague Adhir Ranjan Chaudhury did not utter a single word. If Congress was concerned about the farmers, then they would have joined us. Congress is only pretending to be farmer-friendly.”

The Times of India

2020-12-26

Delhi