The head of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Sharad Pawar, criticized the Center on Tuesday for excluding state governments and not consulting them on the three contentious new farm laws, prompting protests from farmers since last month.
The passage of the laws has led thousands of farmers to camp on the borders of the national capital since November 26.
In a pointed comment, the PNC supreme said that the country’s agricultural sector cannot be managed sitting in Delhi. “Agriculture cannot be managed sitting in Delhi, as it involves working farmers in the villages and more responsibility for this lies with state governments,” Pawar told the PTI news agency.
Pawar also contested the charges of the Union agriculture minister, Narendra Singh Tomar, who has said that the PNC leader wanted to introduce the same legislation during the UPA government led by Manmohan Singh, but was unable to do so due to political pressure. .
“Manmohan Singh and I also wanted to introduce some reforms in the agricultural sector, but not in the same way that the current dispensation did. On that occasion, the Ministry of Agriculture held lengthy discussions on the proposed reforms with the ministers of agriculture of all the states and experts from the sector, ”said Pawar.
“So when most agriculture ministers had some reservations, it was the duty of the central government and me to take them in confidence and solve their problems before moving forward,” Pawar said.
Attacking the arrogance posed by the government in introducing the three farm law, Pawar said: “How can a government say in a democracy that it will not listen or that it will not change its line? In a way, the government wiped out these three bills. “
If the Center had consulted state governments and taken them in confidence, such a situation would not have arisen, Pawar said.
The head of the NCP, whose party is a third party in the Maharashtra government, has also alleged that farmers are not a priority for the government. “If farmers had been the government’s priority, this problem would not have continued for that long. Then they say that there are only farmers from Haryana, Punjab and western Uttar Pradesh who are protesting, ”Pawar said.
“Have they not contributed to the overall food security of the country?” Pawar asked.
Pawar’s comments come after the Center’s invitation to protesting farmers for a meeting in Delhi on Wednesday to discuss the three farm laws after farmers’ unions agreed to restart negotiations with the government in a bid to resolve the issue. stagnation. The invitation comes amid one of the largest peasant union strikes on the borders of the national capital in decades to demand that the Center repeal the three laws passed by Parliament in September.
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