The resolution against the Center’s agricultural laws passed by the Kerala Legislative Assembly received unlikely support: from the sole member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Olanchery Rajagopal.
Spokesperson P Sreeramakrishnan said the resolution was passed unanimously through a voice vote in the special session of the Assembly.
Rajagopal did not go on strike and then accepted the points of the resolution. He was Minister of State for Railways in the cabinet of Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
This has been a great embarrassment to the BJP. The chairman of the party’s state unit, K Surendran, said he will check what Rajagopalan said at the assembly. Surendran also said that he does not believe that a high-ranking leader like Rajagopalan would take a contrary view.
Punjab had become the first state to pass a resolution against controversial farm laws in October.
The BJP-led central government has said that the “historic” laws are beneficial to small farmers and will give them the option to sell their products as they choose. The laws, passed by Parliament in September, essentially change the way India’s farmers do business by creating free markets rather than a decades-old network of government markets that allow traders to store essential commodities for future sales. . These laws also establish a national framework for contract farming.
These laws are the Agricultural Products Trade and Trade (Promotion and Facilitation) Act of 2020, the Farmers Agreement (Empowerment and Protection) on Price Guarantee and Agricultural Services of 2020, and the Essential Products (Amendment) Act of 2020. Together, allow large corporations to buy directly from farmers, without going through decades-long regulations.
But these laws have sparked protests near Delhi with various farmers’ unions coming together to demand that the Center repeal them. Farmers say the reforms will make them vulnerable to exploitation by large corporations, erode their bargaining power and weaken the government’s procurement system.
Many opposition parties have supported farmers, and Congress has reiterated its demand to repeal these laws. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) accused the government of not listening to farmers.
Several rounds of talks between the government and farmers so far have failed to break the deadlock. However, in the last (sixth) round of talks on Wednesday, the Center agreed to the demand to avoid farmers high fines for burning crop residues, as provided in an anti-pollution ordinance, and to continue with the mechanism current of giving subsidies. energy for agricultural use.
However, the two main demands for the repeal of three new farm laws and a legal guarantee of supportive minimum prices have yet to be discussed. The government did not accept these core demands on Wednesday and postponed them until the next round of talks on January 4, in which farmers agreed to participate.
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