Congress plans to use farm Bills against BJP in TN

CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu Congress unit is planning to leverage the hurried passage of the farm Bills this week to reach out to farmers in the State. The party’s farmers’ wing hopes it will be able to use the legislation as an example of the BJP’s “duplicity” and “betrayal” of the farmers. A section of farmers in the State have been protesting against the legislations.

The Congress’ strategy will be two-fold. First, it plans to educate farmers about every aspect of the Bills and possible adverse effects they may have if they become law. To this end, the farmers’ wing has planned a State-level conference on October 10. According to GK Muralidharan, state general secretary of the wing, the country’s farmers will be adversely affected by the Bills if they become laws.

“At the conference, we will explain each and every aspect of the legislations and their possible ill-effects. Later, we will reach out to farmers of the state and help them understand the consequences of the Bills,” Muralidharan said. The second part of the Congress’ strategy is to highlight to the masses the hurried manner in which the BJP-led Union Government passed the Bills.

The party plans to draw a comparison between this and exhaustive consultations and debates following the Congress-led UPA government enacted the Land Acquisition Act in 2013. 

“Parliament witnessed 13 hours of debate with 60 members airing their views when the UPA-2 government introduced the legislation in 2013. One should compare how the Congress and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh-led government respected the views of elected representatives with the adamant attitude of the BJP which rushed the legislation through the Houses,” he said.