In a dramatic gesture aimed at sending across a political message on the farmers' agitation and a move which is set to intensify his confrontation with the BJP-ruled Centre, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday tore up copies of the three contentious farm laws in the state Vidhan Sabha during a one-day special session.
“These are the three laws. Here in the Assembly, I will...” Kejriwal said, before he proceeded to tear up the copies.
“The andolan has been going on for more than 20 days now. And on an average, each day, a farmer is sacrificing his life in this struggle. The Central government should take back the three laws immediately to prevent any more farmers from dying,” he said.
The chief minister asked what the pressing need was to pass the laws during the pandemic. The laws were passed not for the benefit of the farmers, but to help the corporates “who fund the BJP's electioneering”, he alleged.
“It is for the first time that three laws were passed without voting in the Rajya Sabha. I tear the three laws in this Assembly and appeal to the Centre not to become worse than Britishers,” Kejriwal said as the AAP MLAs shouted 'Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan'.
“I felt proud to tear the laws. When the country's farmer is sleeping on the streets in the bitterly cold conditions, I cannot betray him,” he said, adding that every farmer now had the same stature as Bhagat Singh.
At the onset of what was originally planned as a one-day special session but will spill over to tomorrow, Transport Minister Kailash Gehlot, who comes from a rural constituency in the capital, tabled a resolution demanding a repeal of the three farm laws, signalling that the AAP had upped the ante with regard to the farmers' agitation. The BJP MLAs in the Vidhan Sabha opposed the resolution.
AAP legislators Mahendra Goyal and Somnath Bharti, too, tore copies of the farm laws.
Meanwhile, the BJP workers staged demonstrations outside the Assembly to protest against the non-release of funds by the Delhi government to the BJP-ruled municipal corporations.
“If you pursue the politics of oppression of farmers, we will do the politics of protecting farmers. The Delhi government supports the farmers' agitation and we appeal to the Centre to roll back the 'black' laws. The three laws brought in by the Centre are against the nation's interests,” Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai said.
The Kejriwal government had refused to grant permission to the Delhi Police to convert stadiums in the city into temporary jails to house the protesting farmers. Even as political opponents questioned the AAP regime's go-ahead to the farm laws in the capital, Kejriwal intensified his engagement with the issue, visiting the protest site at the Delhi-Haryana border. He also observed a day-long fast in solidarity with the farmers.
The AAP supremo has vociferously spoken for the farmers, attacking the ruling dispensation for its alleged attempts at labelling the protesters as anti-national and terrorists. The party's aggressive stance on the farm laws is apparently dictated by its political interests in Punjab, where it is the principal opposition.
