The nationwide bandh call given by Congress and its allies has witnessed mixed reaction from political parties, while the Congress, JMM have termed the bandh as successful in State, the BJP has described the bandh a failure.
State BJP president Deepak Prakash addressing a press conference at party office described the bandh as failure as the protest was carried out by ruling parties minus farmers. Prakash said, “The Congress party which has ruled the country for maximum period in the country has not done anything substantial for farmers, but has only ignored their demands. During UPA regime more than one lakh farmers had committed suicide. The Congress party has put the Swaminathan report findings in cold storage. The findings dealt with measures to be taken for the benefit of farmers along with increasing the farm productivity.”
He also said that the Congress party is now opposing the farm bill, but the same party in its 2019 election manifesto had talked about abolishing APMC Act and strengthening agriculture mandis. The State BJP president also claimed that during the UPA tenure when Sharad Pawar was agriculture minister he too had advocated implementation of farm bills for uplift of farmers.
Former chief minister Raghubar Das too attacked the ruling party for jumping in farmers’ agitation. Das said, “The JMM, Congress and other parties have jumped into farmers agitation for their personal gain and motive, but these parties are not going to be benefitted with protest.”
Das said, “While the Congress party especially Finance Minister Rameshwar Oraon is giving advisories on farmers’ welfare, but the government has stopped paddy procurement citing that paddy contains moisture.” Das also attacked Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and NCP chief Sharad Pawar for misleading farmers on farm bills.
However, the ruling parties JMM and Congress have termed the bandh call as successful, JMM general secretary and party spokesperson Supriyo Bhattacharya rebutting former chief minister Raghubar Das said that the former chief minister has neither knowledge nor information about farm bills. He said, “Despite having no knowledge about farm bills and agriculture, Das is behaving like an agriculture scientist and expert.” He further said, “Raghubar Das is rejected but he wants to become a subject.”
Bhattacharaya said, “Modi government has committed mistakes in making law from the State list. Agriculture comes under the State list, but the Modi government first passed an ordinance and then made the law stanching agriculture from State list to Union list.”
The JMM leader claimed that the farm bill is an attempt of the Modi government towards corporatization and privatization of agriculture. Highlighting the ‘loopholes’ of farm bill, Bhattacharaya said that with new farm bill the Modi government wants to abolish the system of markets (mandis) system, at the same time going to introduce contract farming in agriculture hitting the farmers.
State Congress president and Finance Minister Rameshwar Oraon said that this is for the first time in Independent India that such an arrogant government has come to power. “Due to the government's arrogance farmers will be compelled to work as labourers in their own agricultural land,” said Oraon.
Echoing the views of party president, Congress legislative party leader and Minister Alamgir Alam said that Modi government is doing work according to its whims and fancies. He said, “The Congress party will keep on protesting against the farm bill till the government rolls back its earlier decision.”
