Sharad Pawar is scheduled to meet with President Ram Nath Kovind on December 9 for the ongoing farmers’ protest.
The BJP has been circulating letters from former Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar at random to “confuse” people after the Nationalist Congress Party declared its support for farmers agitating against the Center’s new farm laws, said the Monday the NCP.
The letters from Pawar, who handled the key agriculture portfolio during the congressional-led UPA government, have become a source of controversy with the BJP using them to attack the chairman of the NCP whose party has opposed the new farm laws. and supported the ongoing turmoil. by farmers.
The PNC supported Pawar, saying that, as agriculture minister, he persuaded many “reluctant” states to implement the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government’s model APMC Law.
Speaking to reporters in Mumbai, PNC spokesman and Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik said that Pawar, when he had the agricultural portfolio, made decisions with consensus and never imposed them on the states.
On the other hand, the Modi government is working in a dictatorial manner and “imposing” agricultural laws on the states, Malik charged.
After the PNC declared its support (for the farmers), the BJP people have circulated some letters, claiming Pawar saheb he himself was encouraging privatization, he said.
“The BJP people feel that farmers somewhere may upset the government. Therefore some documents are being randomly distributed to confuse people,” Malik said.
The Maharashtra minister said that people always believed that the BJP is not a party of farmers, but of those who loot agricultural products.
Mr. Malik reiterated that NCP workers will participate on Tuesdays “Bharat bandh“called by farmers’ organizations to oppose the three laws related to the agricultural sector approved by Parliament a few months ago.
The Maharashtra minister said that the head of the state CPN, Jayant Patil, called on party workers to participate in the protest observing social distancing rules in light of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Hours earlier, NCP spokesman Mahesh Tapase said the 2003 model APMC Act, presented by the Vajpayee government, did not find favor with many states that were reluctant to implement it at the time.
After taking office as the Union agriculture minister in 2004, Mr. Pawar tried to build a broader consensus among state agriculture marketing boards by inviting suggestions for the implementation of the law, Tapase added.
The benefit of farmers under the APMC Law model was explained to various state governments and many state governments went ahead to implement it.
To date, farmers across the country are benefiting from the implementation of the law, which was refined by Sharad Pawar Saheb to protect the interests of the country’s farmers, Tapase added.
The NCP leader said that the new agricultural laws introduced by the Modi government, however, have raised various doubts and insecurity in the minds of farmers regarding the MSP and other issues that the NDA regime has not addressed, which has sparked large-scale protests by farmers.
The Modi government was unable to form a broader consensus and has failed to satisfy the legitimate apprehensions of farmers and all opposition, Tapase added.
In Nagpur, CPN leader and former Union minister Praful Patel said that his party had not supported the new agricultural laws in Parliament, adding that they were introduced without discussing them with anyone.
“There is no clarity on the future of the APMC setup or the minimum support price (MSP) mechanism, nor on what farmers can do to get justice if they face a loss and traders and businesses private companies fail to honor contracts, Patel told reporters.
Mr. Pawar is scheduled to meet with President Ram Nath Kovind on December 9 for the ongoing farmers’ protest against the new agricultural marketing laws.
On Sunday, the PNC president called on the Center to take the ongoing farmers’ protest seriously, saying that if the stalemate continues, the unrest will not be confined to Delhi and people across the country will support protesting farmers.
Central government sources noted on Sunday that, as the Union agriculture minister, Mr. Pawar had asked top ministers to amend the APMC Act in their states to allow the private sector to play an important role in the field.
Sharing the contents of some letters that Mr. Pawar had written to various senior ministers, sources claimed that the BJP-led NDA government has made the same set of changes to the Agricultural Products Marketing Committee Act ( APMC) that he promoted when he was the Minister of the Union.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
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