CHANDIGARH: The Punjab government on Sunday decided to extend by one day the special assembly session called to legislate a state law to counter the ‘anti-farmer’ farm laws enacted by Parliament. The decision came after a meeting of the Congress Legislative Party (CLP) in which party MLAs unanimously stressed on the need to reject the farm laws outright and not to implement these in the state.
The government state has not made the contents of the proposed bill public till now. Till Sunday evening, the assembly secretariat had issued next day’s list of business only as the business advisory committee would take decisions in the meeting to be held on Monday morning.
According to an official statement, the state cabinet authorised chief minister Amarinder Singh “to take any legislative/legal decision he may deem fit to protect interests of farmers”.
‘We will fight this till the apex court’
At the CLP meeting, Amarinder said, “This fight will go on. We will fight this till the Supreme Court.”
Referring to the demand raised by many farmers’ unions for an immediate session of the assembly, he said this could not be done earlier as all legal implications had to be examined thoroughly before taking any step. Amarinder said views of the MLAs would be taken into account while finalising the strategy to battle the farm laws, in consultation with legal and independent experts, including Congress leader and former Union minister P Chidambaram.
Capt Amarinder said the whole world was watching Punjab with a lot of expectation and the views of the MLAs were extremely important for drafting a comprehensive strategy to protect the state's farmers and agriculture. Taking a dig at the SAD, he said the Congress was not “double faced” and had a clear stand on the issue. He reiterated that Punjab was included in the panel formed to discuss agriculture reforms only after he wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
After the MLAs’ meeting, PPCC chief Sunil Jakhar said the Centre may “dismiss” the Congress government in Punjab if it wants but they will do everything possible to protect farmers. “The MLAs were of the opinion, to which the chief minister also agreed, that if the Centre has to take such a step they can, but we will do whatever we can to protect interests of farmers,” he said.
“We are clear that we have to save farmers; we have to protect the peace, harmony and brotherhood... If the Centre thinks Punjab is coming in way of the benefits they want to extend to big corporates through these farm laws and if they want to dismiss our government, they can,” Jakhar said.
The SAD and the AAP are also demanding that the Punjab government should come up with a foolproof legislation to secure farmers’ rights and warned that they would hold the chief minister personally responsible for the failure. The special assembly session will be a stormy affair as both AAP and SAD would be cornering the state government.