Farmers have always been victorious in India and will always continue to win in the future as well, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said on Friday on the day that marked the completion of one year of the farmers protest against the Centre’s three farm laws.
Priyanka Gandhi also lauded the movement and said that it would be known for the “unshakable ‘satyagraha’ of the farmers, the martyrdom of 700 farmers and the arrogance of the ruthless BJP government and its atrocities towards the farmers,” in a tweet in Hindi.
“But in India, the farmers were, are and will always be victorious. The victory of the farmers’ struggle is proof of this,” she added, in an apparent reference to the Centre’s recent decision to repeal the farm laws, following continued protests.
The farmers’ protest against the three contentious laws completed one year on Friday. Several farmers from many states, particularly Punjab and Haryana, have been protesting against the laws at Delhi’s borders. The movement has been spearheaded by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of several farmers’ unions.
On Wednesday, the Union cabinet approved a bill to repeal the three laws after Prime Minister Narendra Modi on November 19 announced that his government has decided to repeal them. “We have decided to repeal all three agricultural laws. We will complete the constitutional process to repeal these three agricultural laws in the Parliament session that begins later this month,” Modi said during his address to the nation.
Immediately after Modi’s announcement, Priyanka Gandhi reacted to it alleging that the move was done keeping in mind the upcoming assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab among others. She said that the BJP had sensed they would be defeated in the assembly polls.
“Now you start seeing the defeat in the elections, then suddenly you started to understand the truth of this country – that this country has been made by the farmers, this country belongs to the farmers, the farmer is the true caretaker of this country and no government can crush the interest of the farmers in this country,” she tweeted.
Several rounds of discussions took place between the protesting farmers and the Union government in the past and following the repeal, the farmer unions have maintained that their struggles would continue. They have said that the repeal was only one among several of their key demands. Meanwhile, the unions have also pressed the government for a legal guarantee on minimum support price (MSP).