New farm laws will make farmers captive of big traders: Nath

Madhya Pradesh Congresschief Kamal Nath on Wednesday accused the Centre of ruiningthe farmers of the country and claimed that the three newagriculture laws will make the cultivators captive of the bigtraders.Nath made the statement while addressing Kisan KhatMahapanchayat in Morena district, the Lok Sabha constituencyof Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar.

Madhya Pradesh Congresschief Kamal Nath on Wednesday accused the Centre of ruiningthe farmers of the country and claimed that the three newagriculture laws will make the cultivators captive of the bigtraders.

Nath made the statement while addressing 'Kisan KhatMahapanchayat' in Morena district, the Lok Sabha constituencyof Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar. Themeeting was held in protest against the three farm laws.

''After the implementation of the three new agriculturelaws, farmers will become captive of the big traders as mandiswill eventually shut down. Earlier we used to import wheatfrom America, but now the cultivators have made the countryself-reliant,'' he said.

''Our country's 70 per cent economy is based onagriculture, but the central government is ruining ourfarmers,'' he alleged.

The former Madhya Pradesh chief minister assured thefarmers that the Congress will strongly oppose the ''injustice''being meted out to them and would remain firmly with them.

''The farmers of Chambal always stood against theinjustice and now the time has come for them to go to Delhi tosupport the agitating cultivators,'' Nath said.

The power of farmers will force the Centre to withdrawthe three black laws, he added.

On the occasion, senior Congress leader DigvijayaSingh urged the farmers to read the pamphlet he hasdistributed against the three laws.

''We are with the farmers and if they remain firm ontheir demands like this, then the central government will beforced to roll back these laws,'' he said.

Former minister P C Sharma said that the Congress willgherao the Raj Bhavan in Bhopal on January 23, while theparty's senior leaders will move towards Delhi on tractor-trolleys on January 26 to take part in the farmers' agitation.

Thousands of farmers, mainly from Punjab, Haryana andwestern Uttar Pradesh, have been protesting at various borderpoints of Delhi for over a month now against the three laws.

Farmer groups have alleged these laws will end the mandi andMSP procurement systems and leave the farmers at the mercy ofbig corporates, even as the government has rejected theseapprehensions as misplaced.

On January 11, the Supreme Court had stayed theimplementation of the three laws till further orders andappointed a four-member panel to resolve the impasse.