Party calls for special Assembly sessions
In no mood to accept the Centre's controversial farm Bills, the Congress has asked its State Governments to convene a special Assembly sessions to pass Bill to defer implementation of the NDA Government's farm Bills cleared by Parliament during the Monsoon Session and approved by President Ram Nath Kovind last month.
The draft version of the farm related Bills sent to the Congress-ruled States allows the State Governments to decide on the date of implementation of the Centre's laws and ensure that contract farming between the farmer and any company, or aggregator, cannot take place below a minimum support price (MSP).
The Modi Government's new farm laws have triggered massive protests across the country by the Congress, Opposition parties, farmers’ associations. Significantly the Bills passed by the States will also have to be cleared by the President of India, who can either approve or refuse to give them his assent .
The proposed Bills address the two of the Congress grievances about the new laws — it disallows MSP for farmers and opens them up (particularly the more vulnerable small and marginal farmers) to the predatory instincts of corporates and large-scale private players.
Former party chief Rahul Gandhi hit out at the "black laws" and said the Congress would repeal them when in power and on Sunday he protested in Punjab.
The Congress, along with other Opposition parties, has launched countrywide protests against the Bills. The Congress sources said the party will also request the States to pass the new Bills where it is in alliance in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. "Besides we will also request States ruled by non-Congress and non-BJP Governments such as Kerala and West Bengal," said the AICC sources.
The Centre has already clarified that the laws give farmers the ability to sell their produce at markets and prices of their choosing. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has verbally assured farmers they can continue to avail of an MSP and that the Government will buy food grains at that price.
Farmers, however, remain unconvinced and have called for clauses that guarantee MSP and protect weaker members of their community against the dangers of contract farming.
Congress chief Sonia Gandhi recently asked party-ruled states to "explore possibilities to pass laws... which allows state legislatures to... negate the anti-agriculture central laws".
"This would enable the states to bypass unacceptable anti-farmers' provisions in the three draconian agricultural laws... would also alleviate the farmers from the grave injustice done by the Modi government and BJP," the Congress said in its statement.
The constitutional route Sonia Gandhi referred to in that statement allows state legislatures to enforce laws "repugnant to the parliament law" if they get the Presidential approval.
"In 2015, then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley advised states to use the same route to bypass a land acquisition law passed by the Congress when it was in power - between 2004 and 2014," recalled a party leader.