Congress leader Sachin Pilot on Tuesday said that the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP's) loss in the recent bye-polls and a “looming bad performance” in the forthcoming assembly elections, propelled the Modi government to announce the withdrawal of the three farm laws.
Speaking to news agency PTI, the former deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan said there will be consequences for the BJP in the polls as farmers' distrust of the government will not go away with one rollback.
After Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week announced that the farm laws will be withdrawn, farmer unions have said that the agitation will continue until their pending demands of a law that guarantees minimum support prices (MSPs), withdrawal of power bill 2020 and air quality ordinance are met.
Pilot said that the Modi government should not only ensure a legal guarantee for the MSP but also provide a regulation assuring that the procurement takes place. He further under-lined that such a long agitation by the farming community in India had not been witnessed in the history of our country.
"If they had to rollback (the laws) then what was the need to waste lives and livelihoods, so much damage was caused, farmers were called Naxalites, separatists, even terrorists and some of the ministers' kin even mowing down people," Pilot further told PTI.
The Congress leader alleged that no deliberations was held with the farmer groups before the agriculture laws were announced. "There has been a "kind of breakdown of trust" between the government and the farmers which is "damaging" for future dispensations also," he added.
PM Modi had said that the formal procedure to withdraw the farm laws will be completed during the upcoming winter session of Parliament.
The Union cabinet on Wednesday is likely to discuss whether to approve the scrapping of the laws.
Meanwhile, an all party meeting is also scheduled to take place this Sunday. PM Modi will be attending the meeting wherein Congress and other opposition parties will demand a full-fledged discussion on the consequences of the farm laws.
With Inputs from PTI
