Even as he termed their Republic Day Tractor Rally a testimony to the celebration of the Indian Republic and its constitutional ethos, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Monday appealed to the farmers to ensure that the event remains peaceful, just as their anti-Farm Law protests have been so far, while urging the Centre once again to heed the troubled voice of the farming community in the true spirit of the Indian Republic.
“Peace has been the hallmark of your (farmers’) democratic protests all these months, and should remain integral to your agitation in the days ahead, including the R-Day Tractor Rally into the national capital,” said the Chief Minister, in his Republic Day eve message.
“The sight of your (farmers’) tractors on Delhi roads tomorrow will underline the fact that the ethos of the Indian Constitution and the essence of our Republic is inalienable and uncompromisable,” he said, adding that the farmers’ arduous battle for survival “will always remind us of this truth, and it will always help us remember (lest we forget), that the principles on which stands the edifice of the India we know, and our forefathers strove to build, cannot be destroyed or demolished on the whims of a few.”
Lamenting that the federal structure on which India’s polity is founded is facing one of its biggest threats under the present Indian regime, the Chief Minister said that the brazen manner in which the three farm Laws were pushed through, without debate or discussion, cannot, and should not be accepted in the world’s largest democracy. The Centre had absolutely no power to legislate on a state subject, which agriculture is, and the implementation of the farm legislations violate every principle of our Constitution and the federal structure it stands for, he added.
The Chief Minister said their collective fight, in which his government was standing shoulder to shoulder with the farmers, was aimed at protecting the federal core of the Indian Constitution.
