Modi should resign if Centre can’t break the impasse with farmers, says Congress

Party draws up agitation plan for January 15

Stepping up its attack on the Narendra Modi government over the three farm laws, the Congress on Saturday said the Prime Minister should resign if he can’t repeal the laws and has to depend on the Supreme Court to break the deadlock with farmers.

Addressing a press conference to announce a series of protest events on January 15, Congress communication chief Randeep Surjewala said the top court should also “introspect” on why farmers don’t want to approach the court while the government wants everything — the Rafale deal, the Citizenship Amendment Act, the National Register of Citizens, the farm laws — cleared by it.

Mr. Surjewala, however, qualified that his comment on “introspection for the court” was made as an “ordinary citizen”.

To coincide with the next round of talks between the farmers’ unions and the Centre on January 15, the Congress will be observing Kisan Adhir Diwas [Farmer’s Rights Day] in which Congress workers across the country will hold protest marches, stage sit-ins and petition Governors to annul the farm laws.

The course of action was decided at a virtual meeting — presided by general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal — of Congress members in charge of States and general secretaries, including Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

Separately, the party’s youth wing, the Indian Youth Congress, launched ‘Ek Muthi Mitti Shaheedo ke Naam’ programme that seeks to collect a fistful of soil from the homes of the farmers who lost their lives during the agitation.

Mr. Surjewala told reporters, “This is the first government in the past 73 years history of the country that is grossly abdicating its responsibility and telling the farmers to approach the Supreme Court. These three controversial agriculture laws have not been enacted by the Supreme Court but have been forcibly passed by the Modi government in Parliament.”

“The Constitution has not given the responsibility of framing the laws to the Supreme Court but to the Parliament of India. If this government is incapacitated to discharge this responsibility, then the Modi government has no moral authority to remain in power even for a minute,” he added.

Responding to a question that the farmers were not keen on approaching the courts, Mr. Surjewala said, “The Supreme Court needs to look within why the country’s annadataas [food-givers] don’t find it acceptable to go to the court. And why it is that this government repeatedly — be it CAA or NRC or habeas corpus or these laws whose solution need to be found in Parliament — wants a solution from the court.”

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