West Bengal has become the seventh state to pass a resolution against the contentious Farm Laws, that were passed in both houses of the Parliament last year leading to massive protests across the country.
The Trinamool Congress government on Thursday tabled the resolution under Rule 169 of the Legislative Assembly to demand the repeal of the three new farm laws – Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act.
It is believed that Congress and Left MLAs also passed a similar resolution. BJP, on the other hand, did not accept the development and staged protest outside the house.
The state government had tried to get Congress and the Left Front on the same page to table a joint resolution but failed as the opposition parties wanted to bring it under Rule 185.
Leader of the Opposition and senior Congress leader Abdul Mannan said that the TMC government does not have any moral authority to bring a resolution against the Centre”s new farm laws as the state administration too had passed similar laws a few years back.
“Unless the TMC government withdraws the similar laws it had passed a few years back, there is no meaning in bringing a resolution against the Centre”s new farm laws. The resolution that we had submitted had those points but the state administration was not willing to accept it,” he said.
Other than the resolution against the farm laws, the Assembly session got heated when TMC’s Tapas Ray was proposing to move a censure motion against the issue of ‘Jai Shree Ram’ slogan hurled at Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s 125th birth anniversary event.
However, opposition leader in the house Abdul Mannan attacked the governing party and said it didn’t have moral ground to pass such resolution as “TMC itself always turned government programme into party event”.
The Congress had earlier supported Banerjee saying that raising slogans in this way at an event dedicated to Netaji was an insult to the chief minister, while the CPI(M) described the incident as “disgraceful to the state”.
Meanwhile, before Bengal, Congres-ruled Punjab, Rajasthan, Puducherry and Chattisgarh had passed a similar resolution. AAP-administered Delhi and Left Front government in Kerala have also followed suit.