TMC to launch campaign against farm bills showing untelevised Rajya Sabha ruckus videos

KOLKATA: TMC chief and Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee on Friday asked party workers to launch a largescale campaign against the farm bills using the unseen video and photographs recorded by its MPs in the upper House of Parliament which were not telecast by the Rajya Sabha TV channel.

Party workers in the grass route level have been asked to organise shows using giant screens to highlight the ruckus in the Rajya Sabha with a title -- How the BJP killed democracy -- in the rural pockets of the state where people survive on farm produce.   

"By showing the video footage, we will highlight how our MPs aggressively opposed the farm bills. We will portray how the farmers are going to lose their benefits in with the implementation of contract farming," said a senior TMC leader.

The new bills provide a framework for farmers to engage in contract farming, an agreement with the buyer before sowing under which a farmer sells produce to the buyer at a pre-determined price.

"Contract farming will pave the way for corporate houses to venture into the agriculture sector. We will explain to the farmers that how the farm bills, when implemented, will deprive them of the market value of their product and encourage hoarding by the corporate houses which will end up in an uncontrolled hike in prices. Our aim is to highlight these issues to the farmers," said the leader.

Sources in the TMC said the party is gearing up to use the issue of farm bills as a trump card to consolidate rural Bengal voters in its favour ahead of the 2021 Assembly elections. West Bengal has 73 lakh people who are involved in farming and 52 lakh of them have their own land.