National

Going For The Jugular

Congress finds a chink in governnent’s armour

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Going For The Jugular
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General elections are over three years away and the Congress is still struggling to shrug off its electoral crisis. Yet, obvious impediments haven’t deterred Rahul Gandhi from promising agitated farmers that a Congress government at the Centre will consign the three controversial agriculture laws to a “wastepaper bin”. Rahul’s promise may sound high on rhetoric but the Congress is hoping that the unrest ignited in the farming community by the recently-passed farm laws won’t go cold anytime soon.

So, while Rahul toured Punjab and Haryana—the epicentre of the protests—on a tractor as part of his party’s Kheti Bachao Yatra, the party has worked out a multi-pronged strategy to corner the Modi government over the contentious legislations. The Congress has already organised street protests by party workers across the country and submitted memorandums to governors against the “anti-farmer laws” while senior leaders have held a ser­ies of press conferences in state capitals exp­laining their opposition to the three Acts. The party has also started a campaign with the target of receiving signatures of “at least two crore farmers from across the country” endorsing a dem­and to President Ram Nath Kovind for rep­ealing the three laws.

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The ‘non-cooperation movement’ by the party against the laws is likely to soon play out in the states ruled by the Congress, and possibly even Maharashtra and Jharkhand where the party is a junior partner in the ruling coalition. In keeping with interim Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s advice to Congress-ruled states to invoke Article 254 (2) of the Constitution and pass state laws that can override provisions of the three central laws, Punjab, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan will soon witness special assembly sessions.

Congress sources say the party’s in-h­­ouse legal expert, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, has already drafted a ‘model law’ that the Congress-ruled states can adopt to make the three controversial legislation ineffective within their respective jurisdictions. The three Congress-ruled states are likely to push this draft law, titled Protection of Farmers Interest and Farm Produce (Special Provisions) Bill, through their respective assemblies. The state law, to be drafted using the doctrine of repugnancy as outlined under Article 254 (2) and upheld in various Supreme Court judgments, will declare to what extent the respective provincial governments are willing to implement the central laws. It will also add a provision mandating that contract farming between a farmer and any private company cannot take place below the government-decided minimum support price (MSP).

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By asking Congress-ruled states to bring their own legislation to override the three central laws, Sonia has indicated that her party wants to turn its dia­tribe against the Centre a notch higher. “The Modi government has rep­eatedly established its contempt for coo­perative federalism. It’s time to now use the constitutional tools our state governments have and push the gauntlet towards competitive federalism in order to protect rights of our annadatas,” Congress general secretary and Rajya Sabha MP K.C. Venugopal says.

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