Farm laws likely to be re-introduced later

Before the euphoria connected with the NDA government’s roll- back of the three farm laws – withdrawn by the government in November after they sparked furious (and sometimes violent) protests nationwide by lakhs of farmers – has settled, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar has said that could be re-introduced at a later date, something that was already suspected.

 

Mr Tomar blamed “some people” for the scrapping of the controversial laws – repealed in Parliament with the same lack of debate and discussion that heralded its passing – and then seemed to suggest that all three “black” laws re-appear at a later date.

 

“We brought the agriculture amendment laws. But some people did not like these laws, which, after 70 years after Independence, were a big reform under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership,” the Agriculture Minister said.

 

“But the government is not disappointed… we moved a step back and we will move forward again because farmers are India’s backbone,” he said, at an event in Nagpur on December 24.

Two days before it scrapped the farm laws, the government issued a note on ‘Objects and Reasons’.

The note, signed by Mr Tomar and released to members of Parliament, blamed a group of farmers for standing in the way of “the endeavour to improve the condition of farmers…”, and said the government “tried hard to sensitise farmers on the importance of the farm laws”.

 

Last month Prime Minister Modi – in a stunning announcement just three months before elections in UP and Punjab (where farmers’ votes are key) – said the three farm laws would be withdrawn.

 

The government’s  U-turn – after senior figures, including the Prime Minister and the Agriculture Minister, spent months verbally attacking the protesting farmers and defending the three laws – raised questions from the opposition, who pointed to elections on the horizon.