Members of various trade union organisations staged a protest in Mysuru on Monday to express their solidarity with the agitating farmers across the country.
The activists were drawn from various trade union organisations including AITUC, INTUC, AIUTUC and CITU all of whom had come together under the banner of Joint Committee of Trade Unions.
The activists flayed the Centre for its “anti-farmers and anti-workers’’ policies and said though thousands of farmers are protesting in Delhi since the last three weeks, the government has failed to reach out to them.
The JCTU said the Centre has passed the three farm laws - Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020. It described them as inimical to the interest of the farmers and food sovereignty of the country and had been introduced without any debate.
It is a step to strengthen the hands of private enterprises to the detriment of the interest of farmers and would hasten the closure of APMC yards across the country, according to JCTU.
Expressing concern over some of its provisions, the JCTU feared that the new laws will facilitate hoarding and create an artificial scarcity of foodgrains in the market. Referring to the ongoing agitation in Delhi, the JCTU said almost 30 farmers have died ever since the agitation began but the government was yet to respond to their demands or even empathise with the agitating farmers. Instead, the agitating farmers have been dubbed ‘traitors’ by the government which was accused of misleading the public.
