'States not competent to negate farm laws passed in Parliament': BJP MP PP Choudhary

As the states are introducing their own bills to negate the Farm laws passed by the Parliament, BJP MP from Rajasthan PP Choudhary said these bills or resolutions against the Centre's Farm Laws are of no use as they will not hold up legally.

"These farm bills are related to the Union list and Concurrent list and the Parliament is competent to legislate on it. The state legislatures are not competent to legislate on these three farm laws. Once the Parliament passes the bill it does not have overriding effects of any other bills," Choudhary said.

Choudhary advised the states to stop introducing the bills to negate the new Farm laws as the attempts are inconsistent with the Constitution of India.

"Congress-ruled states must stop doing this as they are just doing it for political mileage as their attempt will fail as the law made by the Parliament is supreme legally. So states should now start working according to the farm laws to improve the condition of the farmers," he said.

Having served as Minister of State (MoS) Law earlier, Choudhary's statements come in the context of Punjab passing bills to negate the farm laws, followed by Rajasthan which introduced three bills on Saturday.

Punjab and Rajasthan's bills to negate farm laws

Rajasthan's Parliamentary Affairs Minister Shanti Dhariwal introduced the Essential Commodities (Special Provisions and Rajasthan Amendment) Bill 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services (Rajasthan Amendment) Bill 2020 and the Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation and Rajasthan Amendment) Bill 2020.

Rajasthan has followed on the footsteps of Punjab when Captain Amarinder Singh led government with legislators of AAP and SAD unanimously passed the three similar bills to negate the effect earlier in October, however, SAD and AAP later attacked Amarinder Singh for "fooling people of Punjab" and "staging drama".

The Centre has however assured on multiple occasions that the Centre's farm laws will not impact the MSP mechanism as the government continues to buy the produce at MSP. Also, the Centre has said the new reform laws will only free the farmers from being compulsively dependant on Mandis to sell their produce as farmers will be able to sell outside of Mandis, while also having the doors open to sell through Mandis if they wish to. 

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Farm laws of the Centre

The Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 aims at freeing the farmers from the constraints of the state Agriculture Produce Market Committees whereby they would be able to sell their produce anywhere. Meanwhile, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 protects and empowers farmers to engage with processors, wholesalers, large retailers, exporters for farm services. This entails the provision of contract farming. On the other hand, The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 specifies that the supply of foodstuffs including cereals, pulses, potato, edible oilseeds, and oils shall be regulated only under exceptional circumstances.

(with inputs from ANI)

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