NEW DELHI: The War of Words Between BJP and opposition The festivities escalated on Sunday as the uproar of thousands of farmers who are camping on the borders of Delhi braving harsh winters to push for the repeal of three new central farm laws entered the second month.
A day after protesting, farmers unions proposed December 29 for the next round of talks but raised various conditions for the agenda, the Union Minister of State for Agriculture Kailash Choudhary expressed hope that it would be reached. a solution at the meeting, even as several BJP leaders denounced alleged attempts to politicize farmers’ problems.
However, the peasant leader and CPM politburo member Hannan Mollah said there has been no response to his proposal for talks and dismissed claims that left-wing parties were behind the upheaval.
“The government so far said that we did not want a meeting, now that we have specifically told them when, where and what of the meeting, there is no response from them. Now, it is the people who must decide who the liars are. We recognize that there can be no resolution without a dialogue with the government, “said All India Secretary General Kisan Sabha (AIKS).
Mollah said that farmers’ unions have proposed four specific talking points for the December 29 meeting: the government sets the procedure to repeal three agricultural laws, procedure to make minimum support price (MSP) for crops a legal right, release of Punjab farmers arrested in pollution-related cases and repeal of the electricity amendment bill.
The government had previously opposed raising issues unrelated to the three farm laws.
“While there is no response from the government, they are busy pushing an agenda about the movement that was never ours to begin with. Of the 500 organizations that are part of the farmers’ struggle, around 10-11 would be from the left. Do you want that? people believe that millions of people are responding to the call of the left parties? If this were true, then we would have a revolution, “said the 76-year-old leader.
There has been no progress after five rounds of talks between the Center and farmers’ unions, which rejected a government proposal to amend the laws and provide a written guarantee on the MSP issue.
AAP Supreme and Prime Minister Arvind Kejriwal visited the site of the protest on the Singhu border for the second time and called on the Center to remove the contentious laws, but the BJP said it can set a date and place for its choice where the benefits of the legislation could be explained to you.
Security remained tight on Delhi’s borders with hundreds of personnel deployed to Singhu, Ghazipur and Tikri, where farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and parts of Uttar Pradesh, have been camping since the last week of November.
Protesters rattled plates and other utensils at sit-in venues and in some areas of Punjab and Haryana during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s monthly radio address ‘Mann ki baat’ following a call from the unions.
Sources claimed that more than 176 mobile signal transmission sites have been vandalized in the past 24 hours in Punjab by protesters despite Prime Minister Amarinder Singh’s appeal not to damage telecommunications infrastructure.
While companies owned by billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani do not purchase food grains from farmers, the narrative that the new farm laws will benefit them has made them easy targets, and protesting farmers in different parts of Punjab have trashed and damaged the Reliance Jio connectivity towers, they said.
A Punjab lawyer allegedly committed suicide by consuming poison on Sunday a few kilometers from the site of a farmers’ protest on the Tikri border and police are trying to verify an alleged suicide note in which he said he was sacrificing his life in support of the farmers. ‘agitation.
Amarjit Singh from Jalalabad in the Fazilka district of Punjab was taken to the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS) in Rohtak, where doctors pronounced him dead upon arrival, police said. Previously, at least two suicides have been linked to the farmers’ uproar.
Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said on Sunday that attempts to “mislead” farmers about recent farm laws will not be successful.
Addressing a role in Shimla, the BJP leader said the new laws will increase farmers’ incomes, but the Congress He is cheating them.
Whenever reform is introduced, it takes a few years before it begins to show positive results, Singh said in his virtual speech.
Whether it was the 1991 economic reforms introduced by then-Finance Minister Manmohan Singh or those introduced by the government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, it took four or five years to see positive results, he added.
“Similarly, if we cannot wait four or five years, we can wait at least two years to see the positive results of the agricultural reforms being carried out by the Narendra Modi government,” Singh said.
President of BJP JP Nadda shared an old video of Rahul Gandhi’s speech at Lok Sabha in which he appears to be advocating for the need for farmers to ditch the middlemen and sell their produce directly to industry, as he accused the congressional leader of playing politics for the ongoing farmers’ protest.
“What is this magic that is happening Rahul ji? You now oppose what you had defended before. It has nothing to do with the interests of the country or the farmers. You just have to play politics. But this is your too bad his hypocrisy does not The people of the country and farmers have recognized his double standards, “Nadda tweeted in Hindi along with the video clip.
Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh criticized the BJP and said it should stop smearing farmers and their genuine fight for justice by using offensive terms like “urban naxals, khalistanis, hooligans”.
“If the BJP cannot distinguish between anguished citizens fighting for their survival and terrorists, militants and hooligans, it should renounce all pretense of being a popular party,” the prime minister said in a statement.
Two Punjab congressional MPs said the Center should withdraw the recent stubble burning ordinance and the Electricity Amendment Bill before its next round of talks with protesting farmers’ unions for dialogue to end the stalemate on three agricultural marketing laws can move forward smoothly.
The government must win the trust of protesting farmers, said MPs Ravneet Singh Bittu and Jasbir Singh Gill, who have been organizing a sit-in at Jantar Mantar here for three weeks in solidarity with the ongoing unrest.
Prime Minister Kejriwal, who first visited Singhu on the Delhi-Haryana border on December 7, said farmers are protesting for their survival.
“I challenge any minister in the Union to have an open debate with farmers and it will be clear how beneficial or harmful these laws are,” said Kejriwal, who was accompanied by his deputy Manish Sisodia.
“Farmers are protesting for their survival. These laws will take away their land. I call on the Center to please repeal the three agricultural laws,” he said.
BJP leaders Adesh Gupta and Manoj Tiwari, however, claimed that Kejriwal ignored Saturday’s invitation to Tiwari to his residence on Mother Teresa Crescent Road to clear up his “doubts” about the laws.
Tiwari said he was waiting for the prime minister at his residence at 3 pm Sunday and asked the head of the AAP to set a date and a place of his choosing to explain the “benefits” of the laws.
Trinamool congressional deputy Abhishek Banerjee pointed to Union Minister Amit Shah, who recently visited West Bengal, citing the farmers’ uproar.
“How about visiting the restless farmers on the Delhi-Haryana border? Why don’t you go there for lunch? Because you don’t have that courage,” he said.
Delhi traffic police alerted travelers to routes that were closed due to the unrest.
“The borders of Chilla and Gazipur are closed to traffic coming from Noida and Gaziabad to Delhi due to protests from farmers. People are advised to take an alternative route to reach Delhi through the Anand Vihar, DND, Apsara, Bhopra and Loni borders.
“The borders of Singhu, Auchandi, Piau Maniyari, Saboli and Mangesh are closed. Please take alternate routes through the school tax borders of Lampur Safiabad, Palla and Singhu. Traffic has been diverted from the Mukarba and GTK highway. Avoid Outer Ring Rd, GTK road and NH 44, ”he tweeted.
Enacted in September, the three agricultural laws have been projected by the central government as major reforms in the agricultural sector that will eliminate the middleman and allow farmers to sell their products anywhere in the country.
However, protesting farmers have expressed fear that the new laws would pave the way to remove the MSP’s security cushion and end the mandi system, leaving them at the mercy of large corporations.
The government has repeatedly claimed that the MSP and mandi systems will remain and has accused the opposition of misleading farmers.
On video: Kejriwal challenges Center to debate with farmer leaders on new laws
.
