Farmers Movement Archive

‘May’ve backed laws, but won’t let farmers’ faith in SC diminish’

NEW DELHI: Former Rajya Sabha MP Bhupinder Singh Mann, one of four members of the committee set up by the Supreme Court on Tuesday to facilitate talks between farmer outfits and the Centre, said he would not allow the support he had extended to the farm laws to diminish the faith protesting farmers had in the apex court. The 81-year-old president of Bharatiya Kisan Union, like the three other members of the panel, had earlier supported the laws the farmers are protesting against. Hours after they were named, the farmers said they would not appear before the panel. How, then, would the committee win their trust? “I will press for a fair, impartial and pragmatic approach by the panel. I had supported the laws partially, while categorically seeking certain amendments,” Mann told TOI. “My responsibility now will be to involve all stakeholders. I won’t allow the letters to be part of committee discussions at all.” In two letters, one to PM Modi and another to agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar, he had conveyed his support for part of the laws. In the letter to Modi on September 1, Mann had written: “When I heard preliminary news that your government is doing away with draconian laws on essential commodities, I was very thrilled and happy. I had thought of presenting you with a BKU badge. But on reading the fine print, the excitement was quick to fizzle out.” He had sought three things — an assurance that MSP would not be done away with in the form of an ordinance, an amendment to the Ninth Schedule to remove agriculture and agricultural land out of its ambit, and that a proviso of the Essential Commodities Act (under which stock limits would kick in based on price rise) be done away with. In the second letter, written in December on behalf of All India Kisan Coordination Committee, he had backed the laws more wholeheartedly. He had written that the entry of private buyers was “necessary” to bring remunerative prices. “There are certain people in Delhi trying to mislead farmer unions. We’re here to support the government’s laws as most of us were troubled with the old mandi regime.”

The Times of India

2021-01-13

India