Farm bills passed amid protest from opposition parties
NEW DELHI: Parliament yesterday passed new bills the state says will make it easier for farmers to sell their produce directly to big buyers, despite growing protest from opposition parties and a long-time ally of the ruling party.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said the new laws will reform antiquated laws and remove middlemen from agriculture trade, allowing farmers to sell to institutional buyers.
The bills also make contract farming easier by providing a new set of rules.
But Mr Modi’s food processing minister from an alliance party resigned on Thursday in protest calling the bills “anti-farmer”, and the opposition parties have said farmers’ bargaining power will be diminished by allowing retailers to have tighter control over them.
Yesterday, some opposition lawmakers raised slogans, tore documents and tried to grab the speaker’s microphone in the upper house of India’s parliament, before two controversial bills were passed by a voice vote.
“The passage of both the bills in parliament is indeed a landmark day for Indian agriculture,” senior cabinet ministers, Rajnath Singh, said on Twitter.
Yesterday, India’s main opposition Congress party criticised the government.
“We will make sure that the government will have to step down on its knees before the farming community of this country,” said Randeep Surjewala, a Congress party spokesman.
“It will be farmers one side and big businesses on the other side, how will they fight?” he said.