The Parliament has passed the Farm Laws Repeal Bill, 2021, which will repeal the three contentious farm laws. Farmers have been protesting on the Delhi borders for the past one year to get the three laws repealed and to have a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP). On the occasion of Gurpurab on November 19, Modi in his address to the nation had announced the repeal of the three farm laws. Subsequently, on November 24, the Cabinet gave its approval to the related bill.
Today is the first day of the Winter Session of Parliament, in which the government tabled the Farm Laws Repeal Bill, 2021, and passed it in the Lok Sabha amidst a huge uproar.
Subsequently, the Bill was tabled in the Rajya Sabha, where again it was passed within a few minutes, similarly as it had been done in the Lower House.
The three farm laws had been brought through ordinances on June 5, 2020. The laws were called Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; and Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020. The first two of these were new laws while the last was a liberalized version of an earlier law.
Farmers have been protesting across the country ever since the government brought about these laws. Their main issue has been the demand to repeal the laws and provide a legal guarantee to MSP. Along with the announcement that the three laws will be repealed, the Prime Minister had appealed to the farmers to bring their movement to a close and go back to their homes.
The farmers are continuing with the movement even after their crucial demand to repeal the laws has been accepted. They have, however, suspended the tractor rally today and their future strategy will now be decided in the December 4 meeting of the farmers’ organization Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM).
Farmers say that they want to hold talks with the government with regard to a legal guarantee to MSP and five other demands. So, it will now be significant to watch if the government calls the farmers for talks. Five state Assemblies are scheduled to go to the polls in the next few months. Uttar Pradesh (UP), Punjab and Uttarakhand are the prominent ones among these. The BJP government that is in power at the Centre, therefore, does not want to incur any major political loss due to the farmers’ movement.