No repeal, says Centre; farm talks break down
SAYS UNION GOVT ARBITRARILY SLASHED RURAL DEVELOPMENT FUND FROM 3% TO 1%
NEW DELHI: Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Friday told farm unions that the government would not repeal three contentious agricultural laws, and a proposal to suspend the legislation for 18 months was the best it could offer, leading to the collapse of a long series of negotiations just two days after an agreement appeared in sight.
No dates were announced for any further discussions.
Tomar said the dialogue process could only restart if the farmers reconsidered the government’s most far-reaching proposal so far, and asked the farm unions to inform the latter by January 23 if they were ready to change their minds.
The farmers, who have rigidly called for either a repeal of the laws or nothing, on Friday vowed to intensify their agitation — the biggest the Modi government has faced so far, and one that has seen tens of thousands of farmers from Punjab and Haryana camping on the Capital’s borders for 57 days. The farm unions stressed that they would be going ahead with a tractor rally in Delhi on January 26, but said they would do it after India’s Republic Day celebrations and not disrupt the official function.
“I am not an astrologer. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow,” Tomar told reporters after the 11th round of negotiations with representatives of a common platform for multiple farm unions. “This is the best we could have offered to the farmers.” The agriculture minister blamed unnamed “forces” for failure of the talks and criticised “people with vested interests who wanted the talks to be unsuccessful”.
“When an agitation is named after farmers, is related to farmers’ issue, and the government tries so hard to resolve it with one proposal after the other, then there is some force which wants to the agitation to continue so that farmers’ welfare cannot happen,” the agriculture minister said. “If there are other interests at play, then farmers’ interests can’t be secured. If farm unions have people who are interested in farmers’ welfare, then our proposal would have got considered.”
Tomar said he told the farm unions the government’s proposal (to put the laws on hold and form a committee to look into the farmers’ demands) was the “best we could have done”. The minister added that he urged farm unions to reconsider their decision because the offer of the government was in the “best interest of farmers and nation”.
On the question of whether the government would ever consider a repeal, Tomar said: “The government has always said farmers can ask for anything other than repeal.”
In the negotiations on Friday, there was hardly any issue left to discuss when farm unions told the government at the outset that they wanted nothing short of a full repeal of the laws as well as a new legislation guaranteeing assured prices for farm produce.
Leaders representing the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, a collective of farm unions on strike since November, told the government that the farm unions had collectively decided against accepting the government’s proposal to put the laws on hold.
The Modi government has pushed a set of agricultural laws to ease restrictions in farm trade, allow traders to stockpile large quantities of food stocks for future sales and lay down a national framework for contract farming based on written agreements. Farmers say the laws will leave them at the mercy of big corporations.
CHANDIGARH : Congress MP Partap Singh Bajwa on Friday accused the Centre of penalising Punjab for rejection of the three farm laws by people of the state.
“The laws were passed with minimal discussion and are detrimental to the interests of the state. By arbitrarily slashing the rural development fund (RDF) from 3% to 1%, the central government has taken a stance to penalise the state,” Bajwa wrote to Union consumer affairs, food and public distribution minister Piyush Goyal, terming the move as contrary to the principles of cooperative federalism.
The Rajya Sabha MP said the Modi government had eroded trust between Centre and Punjab by ignoring any discussion with the state government on RDF. This political battle between the Centre and the state would only hurt the future growth of the Punjab and this would have huge negative repercussions to the growth of India as a whole, he said.
He said the central government is trying to make it clear that there would be no withdrawal of the APMC Act and its provisions. By reducing the ability of the Punjab government to be able to provide durable infrastructure linking villages to mandis, the central government has signalled its intent to shut the APMC system down, he added.