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Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann slams Centre over MSP panel
Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann on Wednesday slammed the Centre for ignoring the state while constituting the committee for recommending MSP for crops
Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Wednesday slammed the Centre for ignoring the state while constituting the committee for recommending Minimum Support Price (MSP) for crops.
In a statement, the chief minister (CM) said that it is a discriminatory move as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government “does not want to give a platform to farmers of the state to air their views”.
Rajya Sabha members from Punjab Vikramjit Singh Sahney and Raghav Chadha also objected to the constitution of the 26-member panel headed by former agriculture secretary Sanjay Agrawal as it does not have any representative from the state government.
The Union government has formed a committee on MSP, eight months after it promised to set up such a panel. According to the notification issued on Monday, the committee will look into ways to make MSP available to farmers by making the system more effective and transparent. Among others, senior members of agricultural universities, five central government secretaries and chief secretaries of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim and Odisha are part of the panel.
“Punjab’s farmers are already stuck in crop cycle and debt. MSP is our legal right... The Centre should ensure representation of Punjab in the MSP committee,” Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann shared on Twitter on Wednesday.
Later, in a statement, he said: “Punjab’s stiff opposition of the draconian farm laws has unnerved the Modi government... This dictatorial attitude is unacceptable and unwarranted as without Punjabi farmers, the committee hardly has any relevance.”
AAP MPs decry move too
Objecting to the exclusion of Punjab institutions and state government representatives from the MSP committee, AAP leader and MP Raghav Chadha said: “By deliberately excluding Punjab, the central government has insulted our people.” He claimed that principles of federalism had been “violated” through the non-representation of states, especially Punjab.
Fellow parliamentarian Vikramjit Singh Sahney also urged the Centre to include a Punjab government representative and experts in the MSP committee. “I humbly request agriculture minister to include representative of Punjab government and some agricultural experts from Punjab Agriculture University in the committee constituted to make MSP more effective and transparent,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.
A farcical attempt, says Khaira
Meanwhile, All India Kisan Congress president Sukhpal Singh Khaira rejected the Centre’s MSP committee, describing it as a “farcical attempt aiming at trivialising” serious issues concerning the agrarian crisis in the country.
“There is no mention of legal guarantee for the MSP in the terms of reference, defeating its purpose,” said the Punjab MLA, alleging that the purpose of the committee appears to “subvert and sabotage” the interests of the farmers for which they staged a year-long agitation on Delhi’s borders.
The Congress leader condemned the exclusion of Punjab and Punjabi farmers from the committee and also questioned nominal representation to the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) in the committee.
The SKM, an umbrella body of farmer unions that led the agitation against now-repealed agricultural laws, has declared that it will not be a part of the panel. Rejecting the committee, it alleged that “so-called farmer leaders” who supported the now-repealed farm laws are its members.
(With agency inputs)
