In protest against the Center’s agrarian bills, Punjab farmers will organize a three-day “rail roko” agitation starting Thursday.
After the approval of the Lok Sabha, the Farmers Agreement (Empowerment and Protection) on Price Assurance and the Draft Agricultural Services Law of 2020 and the Draft Law of Trade and Trade in Agricultural Products (Promotion and Facilitation), 2020 they were passed by oral vote in the Rajya Sabha on Sunday. Now they await the assent of the president to become law.
“We have decided to carry out a ‘rail roko’ agitation from September 24 to 26 in the state against the agricultural bills,” Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee Secretary General Sarwan Singh Pandher said last week. Farmers in the state, along with farmers in Haryana and opposition parties across the country, have been in unconditional protest against the bills since they were scheduled to be presented at the Lok Sabha.
Another farmer organization has called for a ‘bandh’ across the state on September 25.
Protesters worry that the bills will dismantle the current Prince of Minimal Support (MSP) system and leave farmers at the mercy of big corporations. However, the government claims that the MSP system will continue unchanged and that the new bills will generate higher profits for farmers.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also reassured farmers on multiple occasions that the “very historic” bills will benefit them by taking power from middlemen and giving them the freedom to sell their produce where they see the most profit.
After the bills were passed in the Upper House, opposition leaders, including Derek O’Brien of the Trinamool Congress and Sanjay Singh of the Aam Aadmi Party, entered the well of Rajya Sabha while the session was ongoing, demanding that bills be referred to a select group. committee.
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