The Electricity Amendment Bill 2020 is designed to undermine the authority of State governments and undo decades of progress made towards...

DMK president M.K. Stalin urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to immediately revoke the proposed Electricity Amendment Bill 2020, warning that the legislation seeks to dismantle the constitutional autonomy of state governments and erase decades of hard-won progress in agrarian welfare. Stalin stated that electricity falls under the Concurrent List of the Constitution, making any unilateral attempt by the Union government to centralize regulatory control a grave violation of cooperative federalism.

Stalin underscored that the proposed bill mandates direct benefit transfer mechanisms that effectively abolish free power supplies to farmers and concessional electricity tariffs granted to impoverished households and cottage industries. In Tamil Nadu, where free electricity for agriculturalists was pioneered by Kalaignar Karunanidhi to ensure food security, dismantling this entitlement would plunge rural cultivators into insurmountable financial ruin and agrarian distress.

Stalin urged the Prime Minister to uphold constitutional conventions by engaging in extensive deliberations with state administrations and farming federations rather than rushing destructive legislation during a national health emergency. He affirmed that the DMK will relentlessly champion federal principles and resist any statutory measure that threatens state sovereignty or agrarian dignity.