A day after M K Stalin, president, DMK, alleged that the new Farm Laws enacted by the Centre would disposes the farm lands from the farmers and deny them the rights to cultivate in their own farms,  it was the turn of Arif Mohammed Khan, Governor of neighbouring Kerala to lambast the BJP-led Government  for the anti-farmer, anti-people and anti-Kerala laws.

Delivering the inaugural speech of the 2021-22 budget session of the Kerala Legislative Assembly on Friday, the Governor alleged that the new farm bills would push the State into a major crisis.  “These  agrarian  laws will  undermine  regulated  markets,  result  in  eventual demise   of   minimum   support   price   and   tilt   the balance  of  bargaining  power  definitively  in  favour  of corporate  middle  men.  Kerala being  a  consumer State  is  also  going  to  be  adversely  affected  by  the amendment  of  Essential  Commodities  Act,  1955 and the  resultant  hoarding and  profiteering,” said the Governor.

Referring to the arrest of M Sivsankar, the former principal secretary to Chief Minister M Sivsankar in connection with the gold smuggling scam and the questioning of C N Raveendran, the chief minister’s  all powerful additional secretary, the Governor lambasted central agencies for their high-handed activities. But the Governor did not name the officers mentioned above in his speech

“Actions  of certain Central Government agencies have overstepped   the  constitutional  countours  and  are impeding  the  development  activities  and  flagship programmes  undertaken  by  the  State.  This has had a demoralising  effect  on  honest  and  hard  working officers.  In  such  a  situation  co-operative  federalism will  lose  its  content  and  remain  only  in  form.  My Government   has   made   this   position   abundantly clear  before the  public  and  its  communication  with the  Centre,” said the Governor.

The rest of the speech was an account of how Kerala became the role model for the world in countering the Covid-19 pandemic with the active cooperation of the local self government bodies, doctors, nurses and para medical staff. The State, the Governor claimed, ensured that the entire population got their three square meals every day without any help from the Centre.

The Congress-led Opposition raised slogans while the Governor was delivering the speech and walked out of the House demanding the immediate resignation of P Sreeramakrishnan, the Speaker, for his alleged role in gold smuggling scam and hawala operations.