MONDAY, APRIL 29, 2024
Team Herald
PANJIM: As a part of nation-wide protest against the controversial agricultural reform bills passed by the Parliament recently, hundreds of farmers led by Goa Congress unit on Monday marched to Raj Bhavan, Dona Paula, demanding that the bills be withdrawn and repealed.
The Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) held a massive rally to the Raj Bhavan and submitted a memorandum to the President of India Ram Nath Kovind through Goa Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari, seeking his intervention. The protest was led by GPCC President Girish Chodankar and Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat.
Speaking to the media persons, Kamat said that the Congress which was earlier demanding that President should not give its assent to the bill now wants that the Central government should withdraw the bills, which are anti-farmers.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi led government has unleashed a diabolical conspiracy against India’s farmers and farming sector. The Union BJP government is conspiring to defeat the ‘Green Revolution’ by bringing in the captioned anti-farmer bills. This is a well designed conspiracy to destroy the ‘Anndata’ farmer and the agriculture at the altar of a handful of crony capitalists,” the memorandum reads.
The Congress charged that the Modi government has subverted India’s federal structure, subjugated the constitutional mandate, suppressed the established parliamentary procedure by using its draconian majority to pass ‘the three black laws’ without any discussion or prior consultation.
“The laws were illegally and unconstitutionally passed in Rajya Sabha, without even permitting a division of votes and by using force by deploying marshals and by evacuating the members of Parliament,” the party said.
The three legislations -- Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion And Facilitation) Bill; the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill; and Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill -- were passed by the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, amidst severe protest by the opposition benches.
“The Anndata farmer and labourers will never forget the conspiracy of the Modi government to convert ‘the disaster confronting the farmers’ into an ‘opportunity for the capitalists’ under the garb of pandemic. We urge upon your good self to intervene and ensure that these bills are withdrawn and repealed forthwith,” the party said.
Pointing to the various flaws of the bills, Congress said that abolishing the system of Grain Market-Vegetable Market (APMC) will totally destroy the ‘Agriculture Produce Procurement System’. In such a scenario, the farmers will neither get the ‘Minimum Support Price’ (MSP) nor the price of their crop as per the market price.
It also said that the abolition of Mandi System shall snatch away the means of bread and butter and livelihood of the millions of labourers, commission agents, munim, loaders, transporters, sellers etc.
“With the scrapping of Grain-Vegetable Market System, the source of income of the States will also dry up. Through, these bills, there is an intention to render the farmer merely a labourer in their own lands by getting him entangled in the contract system,” the party alleged.
