Mumbai: The Mumbai unit of AAP staged a protest on Thursday against the three farm sector reform bills passed recently by Parliament and sought their withdrawal, saying they were against the interest of cultivators. Aam Aadmi Party leaders Preeti Sharma-Menon, Dhananjay Shinde and other volunteers were detained by the police as they staged the protest as part of the Delhi-based outfit’s nationwide demonstration on the issue, an AAP statement said.
The three bills, Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020; Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 and Amendment to 1955 Essential Commodities Act, were passed during the monsoon session of Parliament amid protest by opposition parties. The Modi government has passed anti-farmer bills, which will reduce them to slavery and render them as farm labourers in their own farmlands.
We stand with our farmers and oppose these bills, said AAP Mumbai in-charge Preeti Sharma-Menon even as the party statement called for withdrawal of the bills. She said AAP workers followed physical distancing norms and wore masks during the protest in view of the coronavirus pandemic.
We consciously took a decision to not protest in a particular place but take a motorbike rally to Chaityabhoomi (in Dadar) instead, but the police didn’t allow us to do so, she added. The Modi government has claimed these bills are to ensure that farmers get better prices for their produce without being subject to the regulations of mandis (agri markets).
Farmer organisations and the opposition parties allege that the law has been framed to suit “big corporates who seek to dominate the Indian food and agriculture business”, and will weaken the negotiating power of farmers.
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