India News | SAD Chief Ready to Lead Farmers to Seek Clarification on Farm Ordinances

Chandigarh, Jul 19 (PTI) Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal on Sunday offered to lead a delegation of farmers to seek any clarification if needed from Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on the ordinances related to the agriculture sector.

Badal said the Shiromani Akali Dal would always stand with the farmers and never allow tinkering with MSP or assured marketing of food grains.

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In a statement, the SAD chief said, “Nothing is more important to us than the welfare of farmers. The SAD has always championed the cause of farmers. MSP and assured marketing are a question of life and death for the beleaguered peasantry and we understand this. We are ready to make any sacrifice needed to ensure they continue as assured by the central government. We have a policy of zero tolerance on this issue”.

Badal said though Union Minister Tomar had assured that “MSP was in force today and would remain in force in the future also”, he was ready to take a delegation of farmers' organizations to him to seek any clarification if needed on this issue.

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“I am also committed to take an assurance in parliament that both MSP and assured marketing continue unhindered," he said.

The Centre had promulgated three ordinances -- the Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance.

Badal accused Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar of trying to “mislead” people on the issue, saying they had amended the State Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee Act in 2017 to include the very provisions they were protesting against.

Badal asked the CM and Jakhar to tell people why they had amended the Act to allow creation of private markets, direct marketing, electronic agricultural marketing and single unified license for the entire state in 2017.

“Not only this, the Congress government also participated in the consultative process which led to the framing of the agriculture ordinance. It is unfortunate that after doing all this both of them are trying to deceive farmers by indulging in mischievous propaganda which has been launched for the sole purpose of diverting attention from the utter failures of the Congress government," he alleged.

“Even today multi-nationals and flour mills do not pay any tax to purchase food grains. When multi-nationals can do trade today why are we resorting to scare tactics by claiming they will capture the entire market when the union agriculture minister has already clarified that the entire government procurement will take place from mandis. This means there will not be any difference in revenue collection of around Rs 4,000 crore,” he said.

The Congress-led government had expressed apprehension that the three ordinances were a "blatant attack" on the federal structure and once they were passed, the minimum support price regime would come to an end.

The CM had also accused Akalis of “selling” the state's interests by agreeing to the “anti-farm” ordinances to “ruin” the state's farming community.

Some farmers' outfits had already announced to hold a state-wide protest on July 20 against the ordinances and rising fuel prices.

(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)