- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE Narendra Modi government’s decision to repeal three central farm laws is “very unfortunate” as the “political move” will neither end the farmers’ agitation nor will help the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in the upcoming elections in the northern Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Punjab, a member of the panel appointed by the Indian Supreme Court on the controversial laws on Friday (19) said.
Shetkari Sangathana president Anil J Ghanwat said the protesters had planned their agitation till the upcoming elections. Speaking to Press Trust of India, he said the Indian government should have adopted other policies to address the issue instead of repealing the laws. He opined the laws could have survived had the government discussed them properly in the parliament and even agreed to refer them to a parliamentary body.
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Modi on Friday announced the government’s decision to repeal the three farm laws and even apologised to the countrymen, conceded that the efforts to convince the agriculturalists did not succeed and urged the protesting farmers to return home.
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The opposition parties were ecstatic and said the farmers’ protest defeated “arrogance”.
But Ghanwat was not happy. He said the decision will not end the agitation because the protesters’ demand to make the minimum support price legal will be there. He also said the decision will not help the BJP politically either.
“This is a very unfortunate decision. Farmers were given some freedom, but now they will be exploited as they have been exploited since independence or since British rule,” he said.
Ghanwat added that under the new farm laws, the farmers were given for the first time some sort of “independence in marketing” but now they have to face restrictions like export ban and stock limits that were used to exploit them to keep the agricultural produce at low rates.
He said the government “has succumbed to the pressure of the agitators” and felt no good will be done now.
Calling the move political, the member of the panel said, “They (the Centre) did not succumb when the agitation was at its peak. But now they have gone down to their knees because they want to win elections in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. To get their party elected once again in UP, they have decided to step back. This is not good.”
Ghanwat also said that with the government’s making his stand clear, the purpose of the report which his panel submitted on the contentious laws to the apex court was over and it will be released in public if the Supreme Court did not do it, PTI reported.
He said the panel’s report was in “favour of farmers” and will decide next week on publicly releasing the report.
The three-member committee submitted its report to the apex court on March 19 after studying the three farm laws and consulting the stakeholders.
The report has not been made public despite Ghanwat requesting the chief justice of India in written on September 1, saying its “recommendations will pave the way to resolve the ongoing farmers agitation”.
