Farmers Movement Archive

Withdraw farm Bills, demands Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa

Jalandhar, September 18Terming the farm ordinances passed in the Lok Sabha as ‘black laws’ for the farmers of Punjab, Jails and Cooperation Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, who was present in the city on Friday to virtually participate in the Punjab Agriculture University’s Virtual Kisan Mela, said the legislations would ruin Punjab, the breadbasket of India, which is feeding the country for decades.He said the ordinances would lead to exploitation of the food growers with entry of private corporate houses in the agriculture marketing sector. He said the minimum support price (MSP) regime would be completely wiped out and private players would procure the crops on their own decided rates as government would have no control on them.The minister said the ordinances would give ample powers to the corporate houses in terms of procurement and storage hence the farmers would be forced by them to work on their wills.He said the Union Government had forgotten the contribution of Punjab farmers in the India’s food production and economy.Randhawa said being a border state in the country, these ordinances may create law and order situation in the Punjab and may hit the country hard. He appealed to the Union Government to withdraw the ordinances otherwise farmers would leave farming in future and the country may face serious consequences in terms of availability of food for all.The minister called the resignation of Union Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal a drama and said her party was playing a gimmick on this serious issue. He said in the coming days, the Chief Minister along with all Cabinet ministers and MLAs will stage a protest in Delhi against these ordinances. “We will take every step to counter these anti-farmer ordinances”, he added.Meanwhile, among prominent present on the occasion include MLAs Sushil Kumar Rinku, Rajinder Beri, Deputy Commissioner Ghanshyam Thori, Additional Deputy Commissioner Jasbir Singh, Chief Agriculture Officer Surinder Singh, Verka GM Asit Sharma, Markfed DM Sachin, Congress leaders Sukhwinder Singh Lalli, Baldev Singh Dev and Angad Dutta.

The Tribune

2020-09-19