By PTI
NEW DELHI: The Trinamool Congress on Monday urged the government to repeal the new contentious agrarian legislation in the upcoming budget session of Parliament and said there is no question of short cuts or rewriting the three farm laws.
TMC Rajya Sabha floor leader Derek O’ Brien alleged that the three laws were bulldozed through the Parliament’s monsoon session and remarked that he was among the eight Rajya Sabha MPs who were suspended over protesting against the passage of these bills.
“All of you know TMC’s stand on the three farm laws and Mamata Banerjee’s commitment on the issue of land and farmers. In the upcoming session of the Parliament, the government must introduce a Bill and turn it into an Act to repeal the three farm laws. There is no question of taking any shortcuts or rewriting the present bills,” Brien said.
“The nation saw how democracy was murdered in the monsoon session,” he said.
The TMC leader also countered the BJP’s criticism of the West Bengal government alleging that it was stalling implementation of the PM Kisan Yojana in the state.
He said West Bengal has already successfully implemented the Krishak Bandhu Yojana which is far more effective than the PM Kisan Yojana.
“Under Krishak Bandhi, Rs 5,000 per acre, while in case of PM Kisan the government gives only Rs 1,214 per acre. The Krishak Bandhu scheme covers all farmers. While PM Kisan is only for farmers with land holding two hectares or less,” he said.
Dismissive of the discourse of the BJP’s resurgence in the state, where nearly a dozen TMC lawmakers have joined the saffron party in the last few months, the leader said the big test will be in 2024.
“The big election is not in 2021 but in 2024. In 2021, BJP has already lost elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. By 2024 elections, the opposition will once again have to fight for the constitution of India and the idea of India, what our founding fathers created over 70 years ago.”
“There will be a lot of distraction, but this election will be fought on the development work done by the Mamata Banerjee government,” he added.
He said the confidence in writing off the BJP came from working on the ground relentlessly.
“It is the same confidence that a good student who has studied over a period of time goes into the exam with. There is no arrogance or cockiness, this is about believing that we have done a good job under Mamata Banerjee.”
Questioning the BJP on its challenge to the TMC in the upcoming West Bengal polls, he said, “Under whose leadership is BJP fighting the 2021 assembly elections in West Bengal? The BJP is desperate to appropriate the minds and soul of Bengal but their senior most leaders get confused about basic details such as the birthplace of literary giant Rabindranath Tagore”.
BJP President J P Nadda in a speech in December last year had claimed that Tagore was born in Visva Bharati.
On November 10, Union Home minister Amit Shah during his trip to Bankura had garlanded the statue of a local hunter mistaking it to be that of Birsa Munda.
