Opp meets Prez, submits memo

Extending their support to the farmers’ agitation, five senior Opposition leaders including NCP president Sharad Pawar and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi today met President Ram Nath Kovind and sought the repeal of the three farm laws.

The leaders submitted a memorandum to the President on behalf of 20 political parties, which said the three laws were passed in Parliament in an “anti-democratic manner,” threatened India’s food security and would destroy Indian agriculture and “our farmers.”

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The Opposition delegation, which included CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPI general secretary D Raja, and DMK’s T K S Elangovan, told the President that if the three laws were scrutinised by a Parliamentary Select Committee, the farmers would not have come out on the streets to agitate.

Their memorandum said, “We urge upon you, as the custodian of the Indian Constitution, to persuade “your government” not to be obdurate and accept the demands raised by India’s annadatas.” It said the new agri-laws were “passed in Parliament in an anti-democratic manner preventing a structured discussion and voting”, and it threatens India’s food security, destroys Indian agriculture and our farmers, lays the basis for the abolishment of the Minimum Support Price and mortgages Indian agriculture and our markets to the caprices of multinational agri-business corporates and domestic corporates.”

Addressing newspersons after the meeting, Pawar said the three Bills should be referred to a Select Committee. . If this had been done earlier, the present situation would not have arisen. Gandhi said the manner the laws were passed, the farmers had lost faith in the government.

This was why the Opposition leaders had urged the President to withdraw the laws