Farmers Movement Archive

Uttarakhand assembly session: Congress, AAP protest over ‘anti-farmer policies’

The one-day session of the Uttarakhand assembly in Dehradun on Wednesday saw a stormy start with protest by the Opposition Congress lawmakers against the recently passed farm bills in Parliament. The Congress members of the Uttarakhand legislative assembly (MLAs), including the state party president Pritam Singh, Qazi Nizamuddin, Manoj Rawat and Aadesh Singh Chauhan along with the Dehradun city unit chief Lal Chand Sharma, headed towards the assembly in a tractor in a symbolic protest against the farm bills that were passed by Parliament earlier this week. However, the protesting lawmakers were prevented by the police personnel from entering the assembly premises. Initially, though the opposition MLAs argued with the police, later they sat on a dharna in front of a barricade. MLA Nizamuddin attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre. “The government is anti-farmer, which has been proved in the farm bills passed in Parliament. The government is not only against farmers but everything related to them such as tractors due to which we have been barred from entering the assembly premises,” he alleged. “All gates would have opened had we come to the assembly in an expensive car instead of a tractor,” he further alleged.The protesting Congress legislators ended their stir after the police allowed them to proceed towards the assembly in the tractor.The Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Uttarakhand unit also tried to gather at the assembly against the “anti-farmer policies of the Central government and the growing unemployment issue in the hill state”. AAP members tried to reach the assembly on foot from various parts of Dehradun such as Fawwara Chowk, Shastri Nagar and Defence Colony.The police barred them from proceeding towards the assembly following which they sat on a sit-in protest.“The recently passed farm bills will gravely impact the livelihood of farmers in the state and the country. These laws will end the concept of minimum support prices (MSPs) for farm produce,” alleged SS Kaler, state president of the AAP. “Besides, Uttarakhand is facing a major unemployment crisis, as the state government has failed to provide jobs to the youth. Chief Minister CM Trivendra Singh Rawat’s priorities are all mixed up. Instead of providing jobs to the state’s youth, he is busy focusing on hemp cultivation to push them in the drug trade,” he further alleged.

Hindustan Times

23-09-2020

Dehradun