Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu on Wednesday alleged the previous Parkash Singh Badal government in Punjab laid the foundation of the Centre’s contentious farm laws with its Punjab Contract Farming Act, 2013.
Addressing a Press conference, terming Badals as “neeti nirmata” (policy makers) of Centre’s three farm laws, Sidhu alleged these laws were similar to the Punjab Contract Farming Act, 2013, that was passed by the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata party (BJP-SAD) government in March of 2013, after being tabled in the Assembly by then chief minister Prakash Singh Badal. The
Punjab law is the soul while the Centre’s three “black laws” are the body, he said.
Sidhu claimed Punjab’s law never talked about the minimum support price and it allowed corporates to buy crops below it in order to exploit farmers. As many as 108 crops, including wheat and paddy, were brought under the law, he said.
In case of a dispute, the bureaucracy was given the power to settle it under the Punjab Contract Farming Act, he said, adding that farmers were barred from approaching the court.
Sidhu also compared some of the provisions of the Punjab law with the Centre’s Farmers’ (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, saying it is a photostat copy of the state law.
He said there was no minimum support price (MSP) guarantee in both laws, which mention dispute settlement by bureaucracy, bar on jurisdiction of the civil court, the amount recovered as land revenue, period of agreement and registration authority.
Sidhu said as per these two laws, it was the corporate who would decide farm services and they could also procure crops directly from fields that could kill the APMC mandis. Sub-divisional magistrates were given protection and no farmer could file any suit under these two laws, he said.
According to the Punjab law, if a farmer makes any default, he could be sentenced to one month in jail and forced to pay a fine ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs Five lakh, he said. These laws were framed only to benefit the corporates, Sidhu alleged.
He slammed the Badals for first backing the Centre’s three farm laws and then taking a U-turn after criticism from farmers. Some video clips of Parkash Singh Badal, Sukhbir Singh Badal and
Harsimrat Kaur Badal showing them praising the Centre’s three farm laws were also played during the Press conference.
Sidhu alleged Badal “favoured the ordinances, opposed resolution arguing that there was nothing wrong in the Ordinance, describing it as pro-farmer”.