PUNJAB UPS THE ANTE

On October 20, the Punjab assembly passed four bills, moved by the Amarinder Singh-led Congress government to counter the provisions—and their supposed adverse impact on farmers—of the three new farm laws passed in Parliament a month earlier. The fourth bill, to amend the Code of Civil Procedure (CPC), seeks to grant farmers the right to take their grievances to civil courts.

The legislative activism—later mimicked by the Congress-ruled government in Rajasthan too—has set the Amarinder Singh government on a collision course with the BJP-ruled Union government, and is now really getting in the way