Kolkata, (Samajweekly) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday expressed her concerns over the ongoing anti-farm law protests being staged by the agitating farmers.
“I am very much concerned about the farmers, their lives and livelihoods. The government of India must withdraw the anti-farmer laws. If it doesn’t do so immediately, we will agitate throughout the state and the country. From the very start, we have been strongly opposing these anti-farmer laws,” she tweeted.
She said that the Centre is selling everything. “You cannot sell Railways, Air India, Coal, BSNL, BHEL, banks, defence etc,” the CM said, giving an ultimatum to the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government to withdraw the ill-conceived disinvestment and privatisation policy.
“We must not allow the treasures of our nation to be transformed into BJP’s personal assets,” she added.
Banerjee said that her party, the Trinamool Congress, is slated to meet on Friday to discuss the issue internally.
“We have called a meeting of the the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) on Friday. We will discuss how the Essential Commodities Act is impacting the common people and resulting in sky rocketing prices,” the CM said, adding that the Central government must withdraw this anti-people law.
Meanwhile, Banerjee on Thursday also announced that the state government would give 3 per cent DA to all its employees in January 2021.
“We give DA to all state government employees in January. This time also there will be no change. We will give 3 per cent DA to to them in January next year,” she said.
