India News | Bihar BJP to Launch Campaign in Support of New Farm Laws from Sunday

Patna, Dec 12 (PTI) Bihar BJP will launch a 13-day campaign from Sunday in support of the new farm laws and hold meetings with farmers across the state to make the farming community aware of the Centre's agriculture reform measures.

Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, party's state unit president Sanjay Jaiswal said he and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will start the campaign from Bakhtiarpur assembly constituency in Patna district.

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"We will be holding 'kisan sammelans' (farmers' conferences) in all the 38 districts and 'kisan chaupals' (farmers' meetings) in all the 243 assembly constituencies of the state. All the union ministers from Bihar will participate in the events," he said.

The programmes of the saffron party were announced at a time when farmers in Delhi vowed to expand their protests over the new farm laws.

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Jaiswal alleged that middlemen operating in the agriculture sector are opposing the new farm laws, and the Centre assured the protesting farmers that the minimum support price system will continue to exist.

"The state governments which consider farmers' income as their source of tax collection will be at loss. Farmers will be able to sell their produce bypassing middlemen with the enforcement of the laws," he said while supporting contract farming in Bihar.

He claimed potato farmers in Punjab have benefited from selling their produce to companies directly, and these firms should come to Bihar.

"The central government has assured the farming community that the 'mandi' system and the minimum support price mechanism will exist.

"But the protesting farmers are behaving in such a manner as if they represent the entire farming community in the country. That's why Bihar BJP has decided to launch the campaign in support of the new laws," Jaiswal said.

Thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab and Haryana, are protesting against the new farm laws which they claim will dismantle the minimum support price system.

They are protesting against the three new laws -- Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.

Enacted in September, these laws have been projected by the Centre as major reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove middlemen from the supply chain and allow farmers to sell anywhere in the country.

Asked about a group of farmers demanding the release of writers and intellectuals by displaying placards of persons like Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, who had been arrested on several charges, Jaiswal said, "This shows anti-national elements are of the protest."

Imam, who was on the run after sedition charges were slapped against him for allegedly making inflammatory statements during the protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), was arrested from Bihar's Jehanabad district in January.

In September, former Jawaharlal Nehru University students' leader Khalid was apprehended under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act(UAPA) for his alleged role in the Delhi riots in February.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)