CHANDIGARH: Ahead of the farmers' scheduled protest march to Delhi on December 6 to press the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union Government to accept their demands including the Minimum Support Price guarantee, the Leader of the Opposition (LoP), Partap Singh Bajwa Tuesday asserted that its high time, the centre government heeded the genuine demands of the farmers.
"On November 19, 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the repeal of the three anti-farmers legislations. At the same time, a Committee on MSP was formed. Even three years after the committee was formed, the BJP has failed terribly to provide a legal guarantee of MSP, " Bajwa added.
Senior Congress Leader Bajwa said that PM Modi had betrayed the farmers by not providing the farmers with a legal guarantee of MSP as per the Swaminathan Commission recommendations. PM Modi opposed what he had recommended when he was the Gujarat Chief Minister in March 2011. Besides this, giving MSP was also mentioned in BJP's manifesto for 2014's general elections.
Bajwa said that the Supreme Court-appointed Justice (retd) Nawab Singh committee has recommended serious consideration of the farmers’ demand for legal sanctity to the MSP for crops. The high-powered committee constituted on September 2 this year, in its interim report also said that debt on farmers and farm workers increased manifold in recent decades.
"I wonder why the BJP government in the centre has turned a blind eye to the interim report of the same committee. It has not even paid attention to the committee report so far. The BJP government seems to have grown unsympathetic on farmers' demands, " Bajwa added.
Qadian Legislator Bajwa said that as far as the farmers' protest march to Delhi is concerned, every citizen of a democratic country has the right to protest peacefully. Neither the BJP government in Haryana nor the BJP government in the centre has any legal right to stop them.