Rahul Gandhi slams farm bills as 'death warrants'

The Rajya Sabha passed 'The Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020', and 'the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020' on Sunday amid the din created by opposition members.

"The farmers grow gold from land, but the arrogance of the Modi government is making farmers shed tears of blood," Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi. "Democracy has been shamed by the manner in which the government passed death warrants against farmers in the form of two farm bills in Rajya Sabha," he tweeted. Gandhi earlier termed the bills "anti-agriculture black laws" and asked how will minimum support price (MSP) be ensured with the ending of the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMC) or farmers' market.

Why is there no guarantee on MSP, he asked. "Modi ji is making farmers 'slaves' of capitalists, the country will not allow this to succeed," the former Congress chief tweeted in Hindi with the hashtag 'Kisan Virodhi (anti-farmer) Narendra Modi'.