Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Tuesday declared that the State Government would soon convene a special Vidhan Sabha session to scuttle the Centre’s three new farm legislations.
“Punjab Government will soon bring a special session to scuttle these legislations of the Centre, which were crafted to destroy not just the farmers but the entire agricultural system, and the State,” the Chief Minister told the media in the presence of the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
The Chief Minister said that the special session of the Punjab Assembly would discuss and oppose the three laws in the state.
He added, “We will also take legal recourse and a session will soon be summoned.”
Meanwhile, Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal demanded that the “anti-farmers” and “pro-corporate” provisions of the APMC Act, 2017, enacted by the Capt Amarinder-led Congress Government must be scrapped in a special Vidhan Sabha session.
“The Chief Minister’s u-turn on the session is a decisive first victory of SAD and the farmers’ organizations. This is one of the major objectives of the party’s massive Kisan Rosh March on October 1, along with the annulment of the Centre’s three Acts on farm marketing,” he said.
Sukhbir recalled how Capt Amarinder had ridiculed the Akali demand saying that this was no solution to the problem. “But seeing the intensity of the Punjabis, especially the farmers’ rage during the October 1 Akali Ros March and in the protests of the farmers’ organizations, Amarinder has felt compelled to take this U-turn and to agree to convene a session,” he said.
“Scrapping of the provisions of the anti-farmer 2017 APMC Act as well as declaring the whole of the State of Punjab as notified Mandi, or Principal Market Area, have been the consistent demands of the SAD,” he said while urging the State Government to convene a special session of the state assembly.
Maintaining that though the Centre’s acts must be rejected by the state assembly, Sukhbir said that a mere rejection of these Acts would have no practical implication or utility for the farmers if the State is not declared an agricultural market and also if the 2017 APMC Act continues to remain in force in the state.