Reiterating that the Farm Laws were anti-farmer and wereintroduced without any discussion with the stakeholders, Punjab Chief MinisterCaptain Amarinder Singh on Tuesday said the unity showcased by the farmersthrough the Bharat Bandh had underscored the need for repeal of the laws,followed by a detailed discussion on agricultural reforms.
The Chief Minister asked why the Centre could not heed thedemands of the farmers, agitating across the country, to scrap these laws andhold fresh talks with all stakeholders. “Had I been in their place I would nothave taken a minute to accept my mistake and revoke the laws,” he said.
Asserting that the whole country was with the farmers intheir pain and in their fight for survival, Captain Amarinder said the Centreshould allow the existing system to continue instead of scrapping the Arhtiyaand Mandi system, as the Farm Laws were designed to do. “Why are they doingaway with it? They should let the farmers decide what they want,” he said,adding that nobody was stopping private players from purchasing but it couldnot be allowed at the cost of the well-established system which had stood thefarmers in good stead all these decades.
The Chief Minister further demanded to know why theGovernment of India was not willing to give legitimacy to MSP, if theirassertion of not abolishing it was sincere. “MSP is our right,” he said, addingthat “if MSP is not guaranteed and another political party, apart from theCongress 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 thefarmers getting their minimum due?”. He pointed out that the foodgrains boughtat MSP were pushed into the PDS to feed the country’s poor and all that wouldend if MSP goes.
There was no reason why the Centre could not listen to thefarmers, who were braving the cold, and send them home happily after resolvingtheir concerns, said Captain Amarinder. This was what he had told Union HomeMinister Amit Shah too, he said, adding that he urged Shah to do everythingpossible to resolve the concerns of the poor farmers in their interest, andalso in the interest of India’s security.
Categorically rejecting BJP’s allegation that the Congressmanifesto had also talked to scrapping the APMC Act, the Chief Minister saidhis party or the Dr Manmohan Singh government never said the existing systemshould be discontinued. The Congress manifesto spoke about modernisation andnot about doing away with what we have, he said. Making it clear that nobodywas against private players, the Chief Minister pointed out that he was evennow in talks with the UAE for supply for wheat and rice, and the country wantedto create storage facilities in India, including Punjab. In fact, even in hislast tenure as CM, he tried to launch the farm-to-fork programme to promoteprivate investment in agriculture related fields like storage, cold chain, foodprocessing etc within the existing system but the Akalis later shelved it.
Declaring himself to be upset by Government of India’s moveto dump Punjab and its farmers after making use of them when the nation neededthem, the Chief Minister said that the country might have becomeself-sufficient for now but could not ignore the possibility of shortages againin the future. “When they needed us they used us, and now when other stateshave started producing wheat and paddy too, they are dropping us,” he remarked,adding that ending the Mandi system would deprive Punjab of the much-neededfunds for rural development.
The Chief Minister appealed to the Centre not to write offPunjab’s agricultural prowess. “Crises will come with population growing, andnext year is being predicted as a drought year…the country needs us, as weproved even during Covid times when we sent out 50 trains a day to feed thepoor,” he noted, urging the Government of India not to be short-sighted.“India’s food problems are not going to end…let us be the producers of yourfood,” he added.
He reiterated that Punjab was not consulted on the issue, CaptainAmarinder said while the first meeting of the reforms committee was held beforethe state was incorporated as a member, the second meeting discussed onlyfinancial issues and was attended by Manpreet Badal, and at the third meetingthe secretaries were informed that decisions had been taken.
The fact was that it was the Akalis who were party to theblack farm laws, said the Chief Minister, adding that while Harsimrat was partof the union cabinet that approved the ordinances, Sukhbir Badal took a wishy-washystand at the first all-party meeting he convened on the issue and did notbother to attend the second one. In the process of wanting to keep both theCentral Government and the farmers happy, they ended up making everyoneunhappy, he added.
Agriculture being a state subject, the Modi governmentshould have held discussions with all stakeholders before bringing in theselaws and not bulldozed them through Parliament, said the Chief Minister. Infact, he said, farmers from all states should have been consulted, since eachstate has its own problems. Instead, the Centre did not even bother to consultPunjab, which is India’s food bowl, he remarked.