"Moved Step Back, Will Move Forward Again": Agriculture Minister On Farm Laws
NDTV
Last month Prime Minister Narendra Modi - in a stunning announcement just three months before elections in UP and Punjab - said the farm laws would be withdrawn
The three farm laws - withdrawn by the government last month after they sparked furious (and sometimes violent) protests nationwide by lakhs of farmers - could be re-introduced at a later date, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said at an event in Maharashtra yesterday.
Mr Tomar blamed "some people" for the scrapping of the controversial laws - repealed in Parliament with the same lack of debate and discussion that heralded its passing - and then seemed to suggest that all three "black" laws - as they were called by its critics - could re-appear at a later date.
"We brought the agriculture amendment laws. But some people did not like these laws, which, after 70 years after Independence, were a big reform under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership," the Agriculture Minister said.
"But the government is not disappointed... we moved a step back and we will move forward again because farmers are India's backbone," he said, as he pitched for private sector investment.
