‘Withdraw ordinances detrimental to ryots’

Upping the ante against the Centre’s reported move to table bills on the three agriculture-related ordinances in the ongoing monsoon session of the Parliament, activists of All India Kisan Mazdoor Sabha (AIKMS) and the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) staged a demonstration here on Monday demanding the withdrawal of the three ordinances.

Terming the ordinances as ‘detrimental’ to the interests of farmers across the country, the demonstrators organised a dharna near the Collectorate here. The joint demonstration was organised in response to the call given by the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), a pan-India coalition of a host of farmers’ organisations, to stage nation-wide protests against the ordinances under the banner “Save Agriculture - Protect Farmers.”

Speakers at the dharna flayed the Centre charging it with bringing the ordinances during the coronavirus lockdown period in the name of “reforms” to promote contract farming in a big way across the country to benefit big corporates at the expense of farmers. They alleged that the three ordinances would trigger ripple effects on the public distribution system, food security and other long term negative consequences apart from deepening the crisis in the farm sector and aggravating the agrarian distress.

AIKMS leader G Venkateshwara Rao, AIKS leader M Ramesh and a host of other activists of the constituent organisations of the AIKSCC took part in the protest. Later, a joint team of the AIKMS and the AIKS district leaders submitted a representation to the district authorities at the Collectorate urging them to forward their demand for scrapping of the three farm-related ordinances to the Central government.