In the last few days, an interview of Sharad Pawar, who was Agriculture Minister in the UPA government, is going viral on social media. Pawar, who was at the helm of the Agriculture ministry for all 10 years of the UPA government, was one of the most ardent supporters of farm trade liberalization when the Manmohan Singh government was in power. He wrote a letter to Chief Ministers of many states to repeal or amend the APMC act on the lines of the “model act” introduced by the Vajpayee government in 2003.
After that, many states including Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh amended it to a large extent. So, as far as the policy is concerned, there was a consensus that the farmers needed to be freed from APMCs. And, some states did it partially while some like Bihar did it fully. What the new amendments implemented by the Modi government are that they free the farmers across the country from the clutches of APMCs and provide them with complete freedom.
The policy change to free the farmers was under discussion since the early 2000s, and the Vajpayee government prepared Model APMC laws. After that, the UPA government fully supported these laws and Sharad Pawar talked about incentivizing the states who will implement the reforms. However, no government has the guts to implement these reforms at all India level until the Modi government did it. And now, when the Modi government has implemented these laws, the opposition parties are opposing them for the sake of politics.
Ravishankar Prasad, Union Minister and senior BJP leader attacked the opposition leaders over “shameful double standards”. “In an interview with Shekhar Gupta, Sharad Pawar the APMC Act will end in six months… The recommendation of the Planning Commission came during the UPA government that the central government may enact inter-state agriculture trade act,” Mr Prasad said.
“When Sharad Pawar was saying that if we do not improve then we will stop giving financial support, then SP, TDP, Left were all supporting Manmohan government. This is your double character. You are ready to go to any limit,” he added.
The hypocrisy of the opposition parties, especially of Congress, in this matter, is similar to that regarding GST, Aadhar and many other policy issues. GST was in discussion for almost three decades in the country and there have been many unsuccessful attempts to implement by many governments including Congress-led UPA. But, when the Modi government implemented it in 2017, the Congress party argued that this is not “perfect” GST and opposed it.
Similarly, the Aadhar Card initiative, which was initiated by the Modi government, was vehemently opposed by the Congress party when the Modi government introduced it in parliament as a form of legislation.
NCP, whose patriarch wrote the letters to CMs of the state to implement Vajpayee government model APMC act, is now criticizing the Modi government for introducing the laws without building consensus. “The BJP regime has also failed to address many other issues in the new farm laws, which has led to large scale protests and agitation by farmers across the country. The Modi regime could not form a broader consensus and has failed to satisfy legitimate apprehensions of the farmers and entire Opposition,” said NCP spokesperson Mahesh Tapase.
However, one should ask Tapase that if UPA and NDA are on the same page as far as the amendment in APMC laws is concerned, what else is needed for consensus. The opposition to the newly implemented farm bills shows the hypocrisy of the Congress party and larger opposition, and the Modi government must be applauded for bringing a reform that was in the pipeline for the last two decades.