…State govt needs to step in to guarantee purchase of crops at MSP, if Centre backs out: AAP
Chandigarh, October 24The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Punjab has urged the Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to guarantee procurement of all crops at the minimum support price (MSP) by bringing in its own laws to protect the interests of the farmers of the state, or step down as the chief minister. It said that the Chief Minister had forfeited his moral right to be on the august chair since Prime Minister Narendra Modi had out rightly flatly refused a rollback on the black farm law.
Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, young party leader and MLA Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had refused to bow down to the mounting pressure from all quarters on the withdrawal of the black laws on agriculture, saying that the move would be detrimental to protect the farmers and the Minimum Support Price (MSP) on crops. The AAP MLA said that in such a paradoxical situation, the onus of guaranteeing procurement of crops at MSP had now fell upon the state government, adding that the government in the saddle must enact its own laws to ensure government procurement of all crops at MSP. He said “There is no denying the fact that the sham laws brought in by the Amarinder government in collusion with Modi were nothing a plain ‘jumla’ to take the people of Punjab, especially the farmers, for ride” he said.
The AAP leader further said that it was a clever move designed by the chief minister to derail the peasant struggle. Hayer said “The three black laws brought in by the Modi government, which were unanimously sans the BJP by the entire House in a resolution, the very next moment, the Amarinder government passed ‘sham’ amendments to all the three central farm laws, making no alterations in the draft. It is quite evident that the amendments made by a state government to the central laws are completely meaningless invalid unless or until they get governors’ nod. The CM had played this card keeping the 2022 elections in view.”
Meet Hayer on the occasion said why these Bills passed by the Vidhan Sabha make a mention of any crop other than wheat and paddy, while MSP should have been declared on a total of 23 crops, including cotton, maize and sunflower. The Barnala legislator lamented that this was this callousness on the government towards the farmers that due to the non-procurement of cotton and maize crops in the mandis of Punjab, farmers were left with no choice but to sell their produce to private traders at a much lower price than the MSP. Meet Hayer made it clear that Captain Amarinder Singh soft-pedalling on the issue of guaranteeing procurement of crop at the MSP, adding that the state government needed to come up with its own laws to protect the future of the farmers?
Expressing is hunch over the scenario shaping up amid the brouhaha, Meet Hayer said the situation would be no different than the farmers growing cotton, maize or sunflower, as the MSP on paddy and wheat crop would be rendered in fructuous after the implementation of the new laws, a brain child of the Modi government at the centre, adding that in a situation like this the state government should protect the interest of the farmers by enacting its own laws to guarantee government procurement at the MSP on all crops. He warned CM Aarinder Singh saying that if he failed to do so, he must step down as the Chief Minister owning moral responsibility.