CHANDIGARH: Punjab Government will be moving to court over the farm bills which have been passed in the parliament.
Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday said his government will take the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies, including the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) to court over the new 'unconstitutional, undemocratic and anti-farmer laws' of the central government.
''We will move courts and fight the draconian legislations as soon as they get the presidential nod and become the law of the land,” he said.
Amarinder questioned the rationale behind putting the controversial and vicious Bills, which were a blatant encroachment of the state’s powers and control of the Agriculture sector, to voice vote, despite strong reservations by the Opposition and inadequate numbers in the House.
"Why did the House not go for division of votes on this critical issue, which has even divided the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA)," he asked.
Amarinder said, "we stand with the farmers and will do whatever it takes to protect their interests. They (BJP and its allies) clearly don’t care for what these laws will do to the farmers."
BJP’s 'watershed' moment will be the death of agriculture and will endanger the nation’s food security, warned the chief minister.
"By pushing the Bills through without consulting the key stakeholders and even without taking the punjab government, a major contributor to India’s agricultural sector growth, into confidence, the Central Government had shown that it had no concern whatsoever for the farmers or the farm sector," he said.
Pointing out that the Bills nowhere make any mention of retaining the MSP, Amarinder said "this clearly exposes the ill intent of the Central Government, which has a poor trust record as far as states go. If they could not adhere to the clearly defined provisions on GST, how can one trust them to uphold their verbal
assurances on MSP."
"Where will these poor farmers go to sell their produce with the states no longer the pivotal players in the entire agricultural marketing system," he asked.
Pointing out that these farmers were nowhere near getting the Government-mandated MSP on their foodgrains in the open market that exists even today to a limited extent, the chief minister said it was unfortunate that instead of strengthening the state-led marketing system, as the Congress had promised in its manifesto, the central government had chosen to end it completely.
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