Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday described the Centre’s “anti-farmers” legislations as “an attack on the soul of every farmer of the country”. Joining top Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in pledging to force the Narendra Modi-led central government to revoke the “draconian” farm laws, which they said will be debated in the special session of the Punjab Assembly on Monday, Capt Amarinder said his government will take all steps to counter these “black laws” and protect the farmers of Punjab He said the aim of the special Assembly session was to aggressively and effectively combat the “damaging impact” of the legislations on farmers. Asserting that his government will take all steps to counter the Centre’s agriculture laws and protect the farmers of Punjab, Captain Amarinder claimed that he will “spend every single day of the rest of life for the revival of Punjab”. Welcoming the Congress CM’s decision to convene the special session of the Assembly, Rahul said the voice of the farmers was “gagged” in Parliament, but it will now “resonate” in the Punjab Assembly and “echo” in every part of the country till the central government is compelled to withdraw its agri laws. If these laws were in the interest of the farmers, why did the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre not allow a debate on them in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, Rahul asked. Virtually launching the second phase of the Smart Village Campaign (SVC-II) along with Capt Amarinder, Rahul condemned the farm laws as a “blatant attack by the BJP on the soul of each and every farmer of the nation”. Rahul charged that the Modi government had launched an “assault” on Punjab and its farmers with these “ill-conceived and unconstitutional legislations”. Every farmer and labourer was feeling the “pain of this attack”, he said. The former Congress president lashed out at the BJP for imposing laws on the nation from the top without taking people at the grassroots into confidence. That was the difference between the BJP and the Congress, with the former talking about buildings and not foundations, he said, noting that farm land was the foundation of every village. Rahul said the Congress will not allow India’s foundations to be weakened in this manner and will go all out to strengthen these foundations. Pointing out that the past decisions of the BJP government at the Centre had led to total collapse of the economy and promoted large-scale unemployment, the Congress leader hailed Capt Amarinder for “generating jobs for youths”. The Punjab Congress’s president Sunil Jakhar also took on the BJP over the farm laws, which he said were designed to “kill the farmers and the farming sector”. The state government, he said, should do everything in its power to prevent that from happening.

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