Opposition has double standards on farm sector reforms:R S Prasad

BJP has slammed the opposition parties for politicising concerns about the recently passed farm laws and misleading the farmers and started concerted attack on the opposition leaders. The party is claiming that the massive protest -- which started in Punjab and Haryana and is threatening to engulf the country -- has been a result of opposition mechanizations.

Union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad  on Monday said the political parties that have lent support to the ongoing protest by farmers shows the “double standards” as far as reforms in the farming sector is concerned. Accusing them of “duplicity”, Prasad said parties like the Congress and the NCP had in the past tried to undertake similar reforms in the agriculture sector, but are opposing the Modi government for trying to do what they had tried to do. “The Congress, in their 2019 manifesto, had promised to repeal the APMC Act and make trade of agricultural produce including export free from all restrictions. In 2013, Rahul Gandhi had called a meeting of all Congress chief ministers and said Congress-ruled states should give farmers the right to sell directly. He said they will delist fruits and vegetables from the APMC and give free choice to farmers,” Prasad said. He went on to say that Sharad Pawar who was a former agriculture minister and is currently opposing the new farm laws had also written to chief ministers for private sector participation in market infrastructure.

Prasad said between 2007-12 the Manmohan Singh government had recommended contract farming. He said in states such as Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, MP, Mizoram, Nagaland, Orissa and Rajasthan contract farming was enabled to allow more opportunities for farmers and to increase their income. “Yogendra Yadav had wanted the Modi government to make improvements in the APMC act. Arvind Kejriwal on November 23 notified the new laws that have been drafted ...The political parties are misleading the farmers and their entire approach is double faced,” he said.

Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, too, attacked the Congress and the NCP -- which now rule Maharashtra with the Shiv Sena -- on the same lines. "In Pawar's biography, he says farmers can be and should be able to sell anywhere... Pawar was never against the laws. He had always said more discussion had to take place. That's because he himself had laid down the rules," Fadnavis said. "Akali Dal had taken a stand in the standing committee in December 2019 that APMC is not working in favour of farmers... Shiv Sena had supported us when fruits and vegetables were denotified. Other parties -- TMC, DMK and the Left are also being hypocritical," Fadnavis said. "Only Punjab farmers are protesting against the farm laws. So I feel the parties supporting the all-India strike call are doing so just to oppose the Modi government,"  Fadnavis added.