Hours after Prime MInister Narendra Modi announced of withdrawing farm laws, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has asked the farmers to not worry.
While adressing media, the CM said, if PM has announced that 3 farm laws will be withdrawn then indeed, it'll happen.
"Even Opposition leader Hooda has asked people to have faith, there is nothing not to trust. If there is distrust, then it's sad," the CM was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
CM Khattar also appealed to everyone to mutually move forward on the issue of farm laws.
"As far as MSP is concerned, since it's a suggestion from farmers, PM has announced that a committee comprising farmers, states, Centre will be formed to take a decision on the matter," he added.
A little more than a year after they were passed followed by widespread agitation by farmers declining to accept them, PM Narendra Modi on the ocassion of Guru Nanak Jayanti announced that the Centre has decided to repeal the three farm laws.
Coinciding with the auspicious occasion of Guru Nanak Jayanti, Modi also announced that the constitutional process to repeal the laws would be taken up in the winter session of Parliament that begins on November 29 and appealed to the agitating farmers to withdraw their agitation and go back to their homes.
"It seems some of the farmers are still not convinced by our sincere efforts. We have decided to repeal the three farm laws. The constitutional process to repeal these laws would be completed during the Parliament Session that would start at the end of this month," Modi said, adding an apology in his address to the nation.
Modi also announced to form a committee comprising representatives of the Centre, state governments, farmers, agriculture scientists and agriculture economists to discuss how Minimum Support Price (MSP) can be made more effective, how zero budget farming can be promoted and how crop patterns can be changed in a scientific manner.
After they were passed in the monsoon session of Parliament, the President had given his assent to the three Farm Bills on September 27, 2020. The three Bills were Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 and Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill 2020.
Ahead of these becoming laws and soon after that, farmers across the platforms had embarked on agitation, some of them peaceful, some resulting in damage to the government property, including the riotous agitation at the Red Fort on January 26 earlier this year, and also including the loss of lives of more than 600 farmers at various places during the agitation.
Hundreds of these farmers -- most of them from western Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Haryana under the banner of Samyukt Kisan Morcha -- have been camping at various entry points to Delhi. They were not buying the Centre's argument that the three farm laws would bring in reforms in the agriculture sector and basically remove the intermediaries, because of which the small farmers will benefit.
Rakesh Tikait of the Bharat Kisan Union (BKU), a prominent leader of the farmers' agitation, said, "Our agitation will not end soon. We will wait till the laws are repealed in the Parliament. We demand that the government discuss MSP and other issues with the farmers."
(With agency inputs)
