Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has extended her support to the farmers’ movement and asked the Centre to repeal the three “oppressive laws” threatening a nationwide movement by her party if the “anti-people” legislations were not taken back immediately.
Farmers from Punjab, Haryana, UP, Bihar and elsewhere were protesting in Delhi against the enacting of the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020; the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020 passed by the Centre.
“I am very much concerned about the farmers, their lives and livelihood. GOI [government of India] must withdraw the anti-farmers bills. If they do not do so immediately we will agitate throughout the state and the country. From the very start, we have been strongly opposing these anti-farmer bills,” Banerjee said.
Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress was likely to hold a meeting on Friday to discuss the strategy regarding the proposed movement even as a number of leaders are in favour of taking a large number of farmers from Bengal to Delhi to support the movement.
The Chief Minister tweeted saying “We will discuss how the Essential Commodities Act is impacting common people and resulting in skyrocketing prices. The central government must withdraw this anti-people law.”
She earlier told in a meeting how the three laws were complimentary to each other and would hit the farmers, townsmen, poor and the middle class equally hard in the days to come.
“This Government is not happy with selling the government properties to the privateers. Now they are selling the farmers to the private businessmen… They have brought a ruinous law that will send the farmers at the mercy of the corporate houses who will buy off their produce for low prices. The other laws would allow the same corporate to collect the produce and hoard them without police intervention till the prices go up … this is blatant throwing of the common people at the mercy of the rich,” she said.
On the large-scale privatization she said, how “the Government of
India is selling everything. You cannot sell Railways, Air India, Coal, BSNL, BHEL, banks, defence etc. Withdraw ill-conceived disinvestment and privatization policy. We must not allow treasures of our nation to be transformed into BJP party’s personal assets,” adding her party would hit the streets soon against the central policies, prompting the opposition BJP to call her declaration a “vote-catching ploy which the people will not believe.”
While BJP leader Sayantan Basu said how the Chief Minister was speaking like the erstwhile Marxists, CPI(M) politburo member Md Salim said Banerjee was too late in taking up the issue.
He said, “Didi has woken up late when the movement has already reached Delhi. The Left parties have already held a nationwide movement… She is trying to stem the rot in the TMC as it is getting decimated in Bengal.