News Analysis India

Tag: farm laws protests

  • Opposition leaders to join protesting farmers at Jantar Mantar

    By PTI

    NEW DELHI: Several opposition party leaders will on Friday go to Jantar Mantar here to express solidarity with farmers protesting against the contentious farm laws and participate in the ‘Kisan Sansad’.

    Leaders of 14 opposition parties met in Parliament house at 10 AM and decided to extend their support to the farmers’ agitation and sit in solidarity with them.

    Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and several other leaders of Opposition parties were present in the meeting held in the chamber of Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge.

    Opposition leaders including Gandhi will participate in the Kisan Sansad at Jantar Mantar and support the farmers in their demand for repeal of farm laws, Kharge told reporters after the meeting.

    “The Opposition leaders’ meeting decided to hold their protest in Jantar Mantar at 1 PM and sit with the protesting farmers,” a senior leader told PTI.

    The leaders would travel from Parliament at 12.

    30 PM in a bus and would participate in the Kisan Sansad at Jantar Mantar.

    Leaders of several parties including the Congress, DMK, TMC, NCP, Shiv Sena, RJD, SP, CPIM, AAP, CPI, IUML, RSP, NC and LJD attended the opposition meeting.

    The opposition leaders also discussed their floor strategy in both houses of Parliament during the meeting.

     

  • Farmers hold protests in Haryana targeting events of BJP leaders

    By PTI
    CHANDIGARH: Farmers held protests at various places in Haryana on Sunday targeting events of BJP leaders, raising slogans against the Centre and demanding the three contentious farm laws be rolled back.

    At one such protest in Fatehabad, the protesters removed metal barricades put up by the police as they marched towards a venue where Haryana Cooperation Minister Banwari Lal and Sirsa MP Sunita Duggal were attending a party function.

    When they were stopped from entering the venue, the police said, some of the protesters removed the barricades and raised slogans.

    Those protesters who were carrying black flags and raising slogans against the BJP-led government were not allowed to reach the venue in the first place.

    Another protest was held in Jhajjar, where farmers assembled when they learnt that state BJP chief O P Dhankar was to attend a party event there later in the day.

    With black flags in their hands, the protesters said they would not allow the BJP or its ally JJP to hold functions unless the farm laws are repealed.

    In Sirsa too, farmers carrying black flags assembled and raised slogans against the government.

    They claimed that they had gathered there to oppose a function being organised by the BJP.

    In Ambala, a large number of protesters gathered on the Ambala-Saha road when they learnt that the district unit of the BJP was holding a function.

    Protesting farmers have been opposing public functions of the BJP and the JJP in the state.

    On Saturday, farmers clashed with police when they tried to force their way through barricades towards a venue at Jagadhari in Yamunanagar district where Haryana minister Mool Chand Sharma was to address a meeting.

    Protests were also held in Hisar against Haryana BJP chief Dhankar and in Jind against state minister Kamlesh Dhanda.

    Speaking to reporters in Punjab’s Gurdaspur on Sunday, Haryana Bharatiya Kisan Union (Chaduni) chief Gurnam Singh Chaduni said it has been more than seven months since farmers started their protest at Delhi’s borders, but the government was not listening to them.

    Chaduni led a march of farmers on various vehicles from Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur to the Singhu border protest site.

    “This agitation has been going on for several months now, but the Centre is not listening to the farmers.

    But the BJP-led government is mistaken if it thinks this agitation will die down.

    In fact, it is gaining more and more strength, and farmers will rest only when these laws are scrapped,” he said.

    Farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been camping at Delhi’s borders for over seven months in protest against three agri laws.

    The three laws – The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act 2020 – were passed by Parliament in September last year.

    Farmer groups have alleged that these laws will end the ‘mandi’ and the MSP procurement systems, and leave the farmers at the mercy of big corporates, even though the government has rejected these apprehensions as misplaced.

  • Farmer from Punjab dies of electrocution near protest site at Singhu border

    By PTI
    CHANDIGARH: A farmer from Punjab died of electrocution on Sunday near the Singhu border of the national capital where protests against the contentious agriculture laws have been going on for over seven months now, police said.

    The body of Sohan Singh, 42, was found near an electric transformer close to Singhu border in Kundli area of Haryana’s Sonipat district.

    “He died of electrocution. We have sent the body for post-mortem,” an official of the Kundli police station said.

    Singh had come to the protest site to join the stir last month.

    Farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, have been protesting in huge numbers at Delhi’s borders since November 2020, demanding the repeal of the three farm laws.

    Enacted in September, the three legislations have been projected by the Centre as major reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove the middlemen and allow farmers to sell their produce anywhere in the country.

    The protesting farmers, on the other hand, have expressed apprehension that the new laws would pave the way for eliminating the safety cushion of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) and do away with the APMC markets, leaving them at the mercy of big corporates.

     

  • Farm laws: Navjot Sidhu accuses Centre of violating Punjab govt’s right to legislate

    By ANI
    CHANDIGARH: Congress leader Navjot Singh on Thursday accused the central government of violating the Punjab government’s right to legislate by implementing the three farm laws.

    Addressing a press conference here, the cricketer-turned-politician said that the farm laws are a clear infringement by the central government on the state’s right to legislate.

    “The main subjects of the three acts are agriculture and market that are essentially state subjects as per the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. However, the central government encroached its way into the legislation by misconstruing its authority on food items, which is a subject in the Concurrent List, as authority over the subject of agriculture. However, food items and agricultural products are distinct categories,” he added.

    He mentioned that the state has enough grounds to completely deny the implementation of these “black” laws in Punjab, adding, “I do not understand, why in this case, we are just amending the central laws and sending them back, when we know very well that all these amendments will not be implemented until either approved by the President of India or if the central laws are first withdrawn.”

    He said that Rajasthan and Punjab have passed amendment legislations for the farm laws but the Captain Amarinder Singh-led government need to take more affirmative actions and completely deny the implementation of the three “black” laws in Punjab.

    “By means of mere amendments, we are going to the constitutional heads who may not choose to help us, and maybe is not a good position to be in at this decisive critical juncture. Instead, why not use the democratic power given to us by three crores of Punjabis by honouring their aspirations? They stand by us. We must do more and take affirmative action and completely deny the implementation of the three unconstitutional black laws in Punjab.” Sidhu added.

    He further said that using the power to legislate and become game-changers.

    “We need to take further progressive steps from now on and help Punjab’s farmers who are looking towards us with high hopes,” said the Congress leader.

    Sidhu said there was a need to support farmers in creating storage facilities to counter the corporate onslaught by the Centre. “Once farmers had storage capacity, they would be in a position to negotiate the price of their crops. In this way, the farmers could be saved from the onslaught of the corporate.”

    He said the government was spending a hefty amount on the purchase of cereals.

    “Why cannot we give MSP on it? The Haryana government is procuring oilseeds and selling oil out of that. We too can do so. The farmers are ready for organic farming but at least someone should come forward to support them,” he said, adding that the state should also amend the cooperative laws and allow farmers to run the same and not the bureaucrats.

    The Congress leader demanded that MNREGA-like income support to all agricultural labour of Punjab should be given.

    “It will benefit not only the labour as an increment in their daily wages but also help the farmer as an agricultural labour subsidy and ease their financial burden. We should increase the minimum wages of labour, linking it to inflation and the government should directly pay the difference. 36 per cent of Punjabis are Dalits, owning only 2 per cent of the land, most of them work as labour, and let us support them,” he added.

    Concluding the press conference, he said that the central government has not solved such problems, as it itself is the problem.

    Farmers have been protesting on the different borders of the national capital since November 26 last year against the three newly enacted farm laws – Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and farm Services Act 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.

    However, their implementation has been put on hold by the Supreme Court.

  • Priyanka Gandhi targets PM Modi in Mathura, says Lord Krishna will shatter his ego

    Express News Service
    LUCKNOW: Reiterating her rhetoric against the Central government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, AICC general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra claimed that the land of Lord Krishna will shatter the haughtiness and ego of the BJP government. She was addressing a Kisan Panchayat in Mathura district on Tuesday. 

    The Congress leader said that the way Lord Krishna brought the ego of Lord Indra, the Rain God down, by holding the holy Govardhan Parvat on his little finger and protecting the people under it, PM Modi’s ego will also be shattered here for turning a blind eye to the issues plaguing the farmers and not repealing the three farm laws.

    In the same vein, the Congress leader cautioned the people of Mathura asking them to protect Govardhan Parvat from the BJP government, which was on a spree to sell everything. “Save the pure and holy Govardhan Parvat from BJP government or else it will also sell it to the corporate houses,” said Priyanka.

    “This government cut off electricity, shut the water supply, beat and tortured the farmers, but did not listen to them,” the Congress general secretary said.

    ALSO READ | Priyanka’s farmer visits to Uttar Pradesh worry BJP

    She said that even after 90 days of relentless protests on the borders of the national capital, the PM did not find it necessary to come and talk to the farmers, nor did he send anyone. “When the ego of a politician becomes supreme, then he loses touch with people,” Gandhi added.

    She also raised the issue of cane dues, rising prices of fuel and power tariffs all of which were hurting the farmers’ interests. She said that 215 farmers were martyred during the protest against the farm laws. “This government said it would double your incomes, but nothing has changed since 2019,” she told her listeners.

    During the speech, a section of the people raised slogans at the panchayat, seeking her intervention in a rape case in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur. The leader dismounted from the stage to hear the appeals of the people.

    Mathura, where Jats make a considerable chunk of the population, was the fourth destination for the Congress leader to address a Kisan panchayat. Prior to it, she had addressed farmers in Saharanpur, Bijnor and Muzaffarnagar. The meeting held on Tuesday was rescheduled due to the demise of captain Satish Sharma on February 19. 

  • Farmers’ protest: MHA extends RAF’s stay in Uttar Pradesh till February 26

    By ANI
    NEW DELHI: Union Home Ministry has extended deployment of Rapid Action Force till February 26 due to farmers’ agitation to maintain law and order in Uttar Pradesh.

    The Congress Party is organising Kisan Panchayats in 28 districts of Western Uttar Pradesh to raise a voice against the farm laws and to support farmers’ demand to repeal them. Party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will hold Kisan panchayat in UP’s Mathura on Tuesday.

    Farmers have been protesting at the different borders of the national capital since November last year, against the three newly enacted farm laws – Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and farm Services Act 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.

    The Central government had offered to put the farm laws “on hold” for 12-18 months, an offer rejected by the farmers’ unions protesting against the laws.

    Several rounds of talks have been held with farmers over their demand for the repeal of three new laws against which farmers have been protesting at Delhi borders for nearly three months. 

  • Train cancelled, some delayed as farmers squat on tracks in Rajasthan

    By PTI
    JAIPUR: A train was cancelled and a few others were delayed as farmers squatted on tracks as part of their agitation against the Centre’s farm laws in Rajasthan on Thursday.

    The Rewari-Sri Ganganagar special train was cancelled due to the farmers’ “rail roko” agitation, said chief spokesperson of the North-Western Railway, Gaurav Gaur.

    He, however, said the protest by farmers was largely symbolic and claimed that not much impact was seen in the areas under the North-Western Railway.

    Farmers staged demonstrations on tracks at several places. They stopped a train in Jaipur and climbed on its engine.

    When RPF personnel brought them down, they sat on tracks.

    Looking at the agitation near Malakhera, a train was halted at the Rajgarh station by the railway authorities.

  • Police detain IYC activists as they try to protest against farm laws near Tomar’s residence

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The Indian Youth Congress (IYC) on Tuesday said its members were detained by police after they tried to stage a protest near Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Tomar’s residence here against the Centre’s farm laws.

    IYC president Srinivas B and many other activists were taken to Connaught Place police station.

    Many other activists were detained and taken to other police stations, Rahul Rao, national media in-charge of IYC, said.

    The IYC activists who assembled at Kamraj Marg were stopped by police as they tried to march towards Tomar’s residence on Krishna Menon Marg.

    Raising slogans against the Modi government, they tried to cross a barricade following which they were detained by police.