‘Bharat Bandh’ underscores need for repeal of farm laws: Punjab CM Capt Amarinder Singh

The unity showcased by the farmers through the ‘Bharat Bandh’ had underscored the need for repeal of the farm laws, followed by a detailed discussion on agricultural reforms, said Punjab Chief Minister Capt. Amarinder Singh, adding that the new farm laws were anti-farmer and were introduced without any discussion with the stakeholders.

Why could the Union government not pay heed to the demands of the farmers agitating across the country to scrap these laws and hold fresh talks with all stakeholders, he questioned. “Had I been in their place, I would not have taken a minute to accept my mistake and revoke the laws,” he said.

Asserting that the whole country was with the farmers in their pain and in their fight for survival, Capt. Amarinder Singh said the Centre should allow the existing system to continue instead of scrapping the arhtiya and Mandi system, as the farm laws were designed to do. “Why are they doing away with it? They should let the farmers decide what they want,” he said, adding that nobody was stopping private players from purchasing but it could not be allowed at the cost of the well-established system which had stood the farmers in good stead all these decades.

The CM further demanded to know why the Union government was not willing to give legitimacy to the Minimum Support Price (MSP) regime, if their assertion of not abolishing it was sincere. “MSP is our right,” he said, adding that “If the MSP is not guaranteed and another political party, apart from the Congress and the BJP, which is promising to conform with the support price, comes to power at the Centre, then who will take the responsibility of the farmers getting their minimum due?”

He pointed out that the foodgrains bought at MSP were pushed into the PDS to feed the country’s poor and all that would end if the MSP goes.

Categorically rejecting BJP’s allegation that the Congress manifesto had also talked about scrapping the APMC Act, the Punjab Chief Minister said his party or the Dr Manmohan Singh government never said the existing system should be discontinued. “The Congress manifesto spoke about modernisation and not about doing away with what we have,” he said.

Making it clear that nobody was against private players, Capt. Amarinder Singh pointed out that he was even now in talks with the UAE for supply for wheat and rice, and the country wanted to create storage facilities in India, including Punjab. In fact, even in his last tenure as CM, he tried to launch the ‘farm-to-fork’ programme to promote private investment in agriculture related fields like storage, cold chain, food processing etc within the existing system but the Akalis later shelved it.

Declaring that he was upset by the Government of India’s move to dump Punjab and its farmers after making use of them when the nation needed them, Capt. Amarinder Singh said that the country might have become self-sufficient for now but could not ignore the possibility of shortages again in the future. “When they needed us they used us, and now when other states have started producing wheat and paddy too, they are dropping us,” he remarked, adding that ending the 'Mandi' system would deprive Punjab of much-needed funds for rural development.

He reiterated that Punjab was not consulted on the issue as the first meeting of the reforms committee was held before the state was incorporated as a member. The second meeting discussed only financial issues and was attended by Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Badal and at the third meeting the secretaries were informed that decisions had been taken, he said.

The fact was that it was the Akalis who were party to the black farm laws, he said, adding that while Harsimrat Kaur Badal was part of the Union Cabinet that approved the ordinances, Sukhbir Badal took a wishy-washy stand at the first all-party meeting he convened on the issue and did not bother to attend the second one. In the process of wanting to keep both the Union government and the farmers happy, they ended up making everyone unhappy, he added.

Agriculture being a state subject, the Modi government should have held discussions with all stakeholders before bringing in these laws and not bulldozed them through Parliament, said the Punjab Chief Minister.