Ahead of the Monsoon session of Parliament to begin on July 19, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has decided to move an adjournment motion in the Lok Sabha against the government on the three controversial farm laws, over which it walked out of the NDA government.
Senior SAD MP Naresh Gujral told The Hindu that his party would be reaching out to leaders of all regional parties to lend support to the motion which requires the signatures of 50 MPs to be admitted. “As of now the Shiv Sena, our allies the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) have agreed to support it,” said Mr. Gujral adding that more regional parties like the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), the YSRCP and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) were also being reached out to. While adjournment motions are not allowed in the Rajya Sabha, Mr. Gujral said his party will mull, along with supporting parties, to come up with a device to indicate their strong feelings on the farm laws.
Interestingly, the Congress, SAD’s main rival in the poll going State, has not been included in this effort and is not likely to be. According to sources, the Congress and SAD’s tug of war to be the sole spokesperson for the agitating farmers, especially in Punjab and Haryana is the reason for this distance.
The laws — the “Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the “Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the “Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020” were cleared by Parliament last year and have seen sustained protests from farmers groups at the doorstep of Delhi. While the Central government has held several rounds of talks, these have been unsuccessful at breaking the logjam, as the government has firmly refused to take back the Acts.
The protests and the mobilisation of farmers on the issue is expected to have a huge impact on voter behaviour in the upcoming Assembly elections in Punjab.
