Even as he slammed the Akali Dal and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for spreading lies over the farm laws and dubbed the Centre’s refusal to repeal them as ‘inhuman’, Punjab CM Captain Amarinder Singh on Friday announced jobs for one member of each of the families of the state’s farmers who had lost their lives in the agitation against the black laws.
Questioning “why the Centre is hesitating to repeal the laws?”, the Chief Minister said they should repeal the laws, then sit with the farmers and frame new laws after taking all stakeholders in confidence. Pointing out that the Constitution of India had already been amended so many times, he asked why the Government of India was adamant about not taking back the farm laws.
Hitting out at the Central government for pushing the laws through Parliament with brute majority, without any discussion, the Chief Minister said the entire country was paying the price for this. “Is there a Constitution in the country? Agriculture is a state subject under Schedule 7, so why has the Centre interfered with a state subject?” he asked, adding: “They went and enacted these laws without consulting anyone, because of which we have all landed in this situation.”
Barely were things coming back to normal after the lockdown, when the farm laws were imposed, he said, adding that the legislations had been implemented by the Centre without any thought to the impact it would have on the farmers and agriculture.
Asserting that “we are with the farmers and will stand by them,” the Chief Minister said during the 20th edition of his Facebook Live #AskCaptain session that the Punjab government and every person in Punjab stands with the farmers. “All Punjabis are concerned about our farmers sitting on Delhi borders, they are there to persuade Centre to repeal laws that were implemented without taking us into confidence,” he said.
The sad part, said the Chief Minister, was that “we are losing our farmers to the cold every day, with an estimated 76 farmers dying so far.” In addition to the Rs 5 lakh compensation being given to the families of the deceased farmers, his government would also give a job to a family member, he added.