Budget Session: Lok Sabha adjourned for the day after ruckus by Opposition over farm laws

Indian Parliament

The proceedings in Lok Sabha in the ongoing Budget session of the Parliament were on February 2 adjourned for the day after members of the opposition parties disrupted the Question Hour to press for repeal of the three new farm laws.

Soon after the proceedings started at 4 pm, members from parties including the Congress, the DMK and the Trinamool Congress trooped into the well, raising slogans demanding repeal of the three 'black' laws. Speaker Om Birla adjourned the proceedings for an hour.

When the House reconvened at 5 pm, the members continued their protest and the house was adjourned till 7 pm. Since the sloganeering continued, the speaker adjourned the  House till 4 pm on February 3.

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Earlier in the day, the Rajya Sabha was adjourned for the day after members of the opposition parties raised slogans demanding the suspension of the business of the day and take up discussions over the farmer's protest.

This was the third business day of the ongoing Budget Session that started on January 29. The first two days which also saw the presentation of Budget 2021, passed off without any protests.

The Opposition parties boycotted the president's address on January 29. In his address, President Ram Nath Kovind condemned the violence during the tractor’s rally on Republic Day while asserting that with the new three agricultural reforms, the government has provided new facilities and rights to farmers.

Enacted in September 2020, the three laws have been projected by the Centre as major reforms in the agriculture sector. But the opposition parties allege that the farm laws were brought 'without any consultations with states and farmer unions and lacked national consensus'.

Thousands of protesting farmers, primarily from Punjab and Haryana, have been camping at several Delhi border points for over two months, demanding the repeal of the laws, and a legal guarantee on minimum support prices (MSP) for their crops.

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The protesting farmers have expressed their apprehension that these laws would pave the way for eliminating the safety cushion of MSP and do away with the 'mandi' (wholesale market) system, leaving them at the mercy of big corporates.

Eleven rounds of talks between farmers’ unions and the Centre have so far failed to end the impasse.