Farm Bills: Samajwadi Party to protest in Uttar Pradesh against farm and labour reform laws

Lucknow, Sep 25: Samajwadi Party is all set to hold simultaneous demonstrations on Friday in Uttar Pradesh against alleged anti-farmer and anti-labourer laws supported by BJP governments at the state and centre to coincide with the nationwide protest call against the three farm reform bills passed by the Parliament in the Monsoon session.

In a statement, the party said that on the instruction of the party's national president Akhilesh Yadav, the party cadre in all districts would submit a memorandum against the "anti-farmer", "anti-labourer" laws passed by the government on Friday, while maintaining social distancing.

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"The bills passed by the BJP government have ignored the interests of farmers and labourers and would make the former lose ownership of land and become labourers in their own farms. Agriculture mandis will be wiped out and farmers would be forced to sell their produce at lesser prices because of uncertain MSP or minimum support price offered by the government," the statement said.

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Taking about labour laws, the statement said that the new laws would badly affect workers and labourers. Till now, an industry with 100 employees had no provision to retrench staff without government permission while the new law would give the right to industries, with even 300 employees, to retrench whenever they wanted.

However, the central government has said that the reforms are meant to allow farmers greater freedom in selling produce and the MSP regime was not going away. It has accused the Opposition of misleading the farmers.