Farmers Movement Archive

Congress hits out at NDA govt over farm bills

A day before the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government is expected to push three contentious legislations on farm reforms in the Rajya Sabha, the Congress sought to mount pressure on the ruling side, signaling an imminent confrontation when the bills come for passage in the Upper House on Sunday. Senior Congress leader and former finance minister P Chidambaram compared the farm reforms proposed by his party and the NDA’s version. “While our promise is clear, the Modi government has surrendered to the corporates and traders,” he said in a statement on Saturday. “Every political party has to take a stand — is it with the farmers or is it with the BJP threatening the livelihood of farmers,” he said.His comments came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took on critics of the farm-liberalisation plan, accusing detractors of spreading “misinformation and lies” while reassuring farmers the reforms were in their best interests. Modi called the reforms a “protective shield” around farmers and took a veiled but sharp attack on the Congress. “These people who would make big promises to farmers during election time, would do it in writing, and in their manifestoes, forget these promises after elections,” Modi said. The Congress’s 2019 manifesto promised to liberalise agricultural markets. Chidambaram alleged that the government and the Centre’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) “deliberately and maliciously distorted the Congress manifesto”. “Little knowledge is dangerous and little reading is even more dangerous”, he said, and added that the BJP was caught in a web of its own creation. The Congress, meanwhile, has issued a three-line whip to its members, asking them to be present in the Rajya Sabha during the debate and voting on the farm bills on Sunday. The party has also called a meeting of its general secretaries and in-charge of states on Monday to discuss the course of action on the bills and give a final shape to its proposed nationwide agitation. The meeting, to be held at the party headquarters in Delhi, is expected to be attended by six members of a special committee (AK Antony, Ahmed Patel, Ambika Soni, KC Venugopal, Mukul Wasnik and Randeep Singh Surjewala). Also read: Punjab’s farmer leaders to burn copies of farm bills tomorrowThe BJP, which does not have a majority in the Upper House, too, has asked all its members to be present in the House. The Lok Sabha, where the BJP and its allies enjoy a brute majority, passed two of these bills --- The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020 and The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 --- through a voice vote on Thursday. It has earlier passed the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill. The main opposition Congress and a clutch of smaller parties are opposed to the reforms. A key opposition to the bills came on Thursday from BJP ally Shiromani Akali Dal, whose minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal resigned from the Union Cabinet over efforts to unshackle the farm sector. India’s agricultural trade still requires licenced traders who must operate out of notified markets allotted to them. The bills aim to sidestep this system, called agricultural produce market committees (APMC), free up market restrictions, enable farmers and agribusinesses to engage more confidently under a new contract farming law and help to create modern supply chains. Critics argue the new system will lack adequate oversight in its current form. “The Bills assume perversely that the farmer and the private purchaser have equal bargaining power. They do not. The small farmer will be at the mercy of the private purchaser,” Chidambaram said.

Hindustan Times

20-09-2020

India