Farmers Movement Archive

Congress MP challenges farm bills in SC, Punjab likely to follow suit

NEW DELHI/CHANDIGARH: Amid protests against the new farm laws, especially in Punjab and Haryana, Congress MP from Kerala T N Prathapan moved the Supreme Court on Monday seeking to declare the Farmers’ (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, and related notifications as unconstitutional and illegal. The 58-year-old MP from Thrissur said the new law providing to monetise agricultural produce of farmers would render nearly 15 crore people engaged in farming defenceless against big agricultural corporations. Advocating resurrection and strengthening of Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees under the 2003 Act, he said it would ensure no farmer was exploited by intermediaries and that all food produce was brought to a common market to be sold through auction. “Without the APMCs, the market would ultimately fall to the corporate greed of multinational companies who are profit-oriented and have no care for the conditions of poverty-stricken farmers,” he said. Meanwhile, Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh said his government will also fight the Centre’s “malicious and anti-national” agri-marketing laws constitutionally and legally. Read AlsoOverride Centre’s farm laws, Sonia asks Congress-ruled statesIn an attempt to lend a sharper edge to its opposition to the new farm laws, Congress has directed states where the party is in office to override the legislations by resorting to a key constitutional provision that allows states to frame their own laws on subjects on the concurrent list underHe said he will be consulting lawyers to challenge the laws in the Supreme Court. He also said that the laws could endanger the border state’s security as Pakistan’s ISI was always on the lookout for opportunities to foment trouble. The CM asserted that he does not want Punjab’s youth and farmers to take to arms to fight for their right to live. “We will do whatever it takes to protect the farmers from the nefarious designs of the Centre,” he added. Earlier, speaking on the issue in Khatkar Kalan, where he sat on dharna, the CM said: “Punjab has lost 35,000 lives to terrorism in senseless violence in the past and with the unrest among the farmers spreading to other states, the entire nation would be exposed to the ISI threat.” Pakistan-backed forces will try to feed on the angst in India, he said and added that he will not let anyone disturb the state’s peaceful atmosphere, which the new laws had the potential to do. Criticising the “step-motherly treatment” meted out to Punjabis and Punjab’s farmers “to make big corporates like the Adanis happy”, Amarinder said, “Will the Adanis subsidise food for poor Indians?” He added that the new laws will spell the death-knell for the PDS system, apart from ruining Punjab and its farmers. Amarinder said the Centre’s verbal assurances on MSP could not be trusted. “When they can break constitutional guarantees, who can trust their verbal assurances?” he said, questioning why MSP had not been made a constitutional right in the new laws.

The Times of India

2020-09-29

India