INLD legislator Abhay Singh Chautala resigns over farm laws, Speaker accepts

Indian National Lok Dal legislator Abhay Singh Chautala on Wednesday resigned from Haryana Assembly over the three contentious farm laws.

The resignation was accepted by the Speaker shortly after, reported news agency PTI.

Chautala, a vocal dissenter of the farm laws, had written to Haryana Assembly Speaker Gian Chand Gupta, offering his conditional resignation from the state Assembly in support of the agitating farmers earlier this month.

Chautala had said if the Centre does not take back three farm laws by January 26 then his letter should be considered as his resignation from the state assembly.

"I have resigned from my post three days back, but the speaker yesterday said that he did not get my resignation. He is doing so because if I resign his government will not be sustained in the state," the Haryana MLA had said.

The Haryana MLA has staunchly backed farmers in their protest as he also carried out a tractor rally from Punjab's Ambala earlier this month.

The legislator said his party was continuously participating in this protest and had assigned duties to all party workers to help the agitating farmers be it from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh or Maharashtra. "Our tents have been set up everywhere to assist farmers," he said.

The protests - longest such demonstration in decades of independent India - have entered their third month and are showing no signs of abating. The farmers are protesting against the three farm laws passed by Parliament in September last year which essentially change the way India’s farmers do business by creating free markets, as opposed to a network of decades-old, government marketplaces, allowing traders to stockpile essential commodities for future sales and laying down a national framework for contract farming.

These laws are: Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act 2020.