The Center has once again invited protesting farmers’ unions to resume the stalled talks and asked them to choose a date of their convenience to end the stalemate on the three new land reform laws. The Center in its letter said that it is willing to address any issue that unions want to discuss in addition to the treaties in previous rounds.
The effort to resume talks comes even as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to interact with farmers on Friday during a money transfer event under the PM-Kisan scheme. But the farmers’ unions alleged that the government’s latest letter for the talks is nothing more than propaganda against the peasants to give the impression that they are not interested in dialogue, and asked it to put the repeal of the the new agricultural laws to resume parliaments. .
The Sanyukt Kisan Morcha, a body that brings together 40 farmers’ unions protesting at three Delhi border points (Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur) for the past 27 days, is likely to hold a meeting on Friday to discuss the Center’s letter and respond to she formally. .
However, the Union Ministry of Agriculture, while extending a new invitation, made it clear that it would not be “logical” to include on the agenda any new demand related to the minimum support price (MSP), saying that it was out the scope of the new agricultural laws. However, the government said it would still like to discuss them along with all other issues. The Center told the unions that it is ready to discuss “all the issues raised by you”, a position that is adapted to the additional conditions that the agricultural unions established in their letter to the government.
However, the unions said the MSP cannot separate itself from the demand to repeal the contentious laws, stating that the issue of a legal guarantee is a key part of their agitation. Farmer organizations require a legal guarantee that all agricultural products will be purchased only at MSP or higher, which also at a MSP set with formula C2 + 50% as recommended by the National Farmers Commission.
“When the government sends the draft of such legislation (for the legally guaranteed realization of a remunerative PEM for all agricultural products and for all farmers), we will give a detailed response without delay,” said the unions.
The ministry also reiterated that it is willing to find a “logical solution” to the problems raised by the protesting farmers’ unions.
With the push of a button on Friday, Prime Minister Modi will allow the transfer of more than 18 billion rupees to more than nine million beneficiary families. The amount will be the next installment of financial benefits for farmers under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN). According to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Modi will also interact with farmers from six states via video conferencing during the event.
Congress, meanwhile, stepped up its attack on the government, petitioning President Ram Nath Kovind and demanding a joint session of Parliament to repeal the laws, with party leader Rahul Gandhi claiming that democracy is only “imaginary” in India. Gandhi met with the president and handed him a memorandum that he claimed had been signed by 2 crore farmers and demanded the repeal of the laws, saying they would not benefit farmers or workers. The Center has rejected the demand for repeal of the laws, saying that the reforms are beneficial to farmers.
Congressional leaders previously held a sit-in protest outside the party headquarters in the capital after they were prevented from marching on Rashtrapati Bhawan. The leaders, including Priyanka Gandhi, were detained by the police for violating prohibition orders. The BJP, for its part, challenged Rahul Gandhi to an open debate on what Congress did for the welfare of farmers when he was in power and what the Modi government has done for them, as it rejected his accusations against the Center for considering them “unfounded and illogical”.
Union Minister Prakash Javadekar accused Congress of ignoring the interests of farmers and keeping them in poverty to ensure low grain prices, and claimed that the Modi government empowered them by implementing the Swaminathan commission report. to give them a remunerative price through the MSP. In a three-page letter written to 40 farmer leaders, the Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, Vivek Aggarwal, said: “Again I ask that the government has been discussing all the issues with an open heart and with good intentions to end protest, and will continue to do so. Then. Please suggest a date and time (for the next round of talks. “The previous five rounds of talks between the government and the unions failed to break the deadlock. Aggarwal asked the union leaders to Please provide details of other issues you want to discuss Talks will be held at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi at ministerial level, he said.
Regarding MSP, he said that the agricultural laws have no connection with the price regime nor would they have any impact on the acquisition of agricultural products at fixed rates. This has been told to the unions in every discussion and it has also been made clear that the government is ready to give written guarantees on the MSP, he added.
“Any new lawsuit related to MSP, which is outside the scope of agricultural laws, is not logical to include in the talks. As previously reported, the government is ready to discuss all the issues raised by the farmers’ unions,” he noted . Aggarwal said it is important to keep all doors open for government discussion. It is the government’s responsibility to listen to farmers’ organizations and farmers and the government cannot deny this.
The open-hearted government has held several rounds of discussion with the farmers’ unions under the Samyukt Kisan Morcha and urged them to choose a date according to their convenience for the next round of talks, he added. Aggarwal’s letter came in response to a December 23 letter from Samyukt Kisan Morcha, in which he informed the government that farmers’ unions are ready for talks, but asked him to send a “concrete proposal in writing in instead of repeating rejected proposals around meaningless amendments. “” The government does not take our demands seriously and they are writing letters every day. The new letter is nothing more than propaganda that the government is doing against us to give the impression that we are not interested in having conversations.
“The government should put the repeal of the three agricultural laws on the agenda for a new round of dialogue,” Morcha’s senior leader, Shiv Kumar Kakka, told PTI. He said that a legal guarantee from the MSP is an important part of the farmers’ demands, which the government cannot ignore.
In another development, two farmers’ organizations from Uttar Pradesh met with the Union Minister of Agriculture, Narendra Singh Tomar, and urged him not to repeal the new agricultural laws. Kisan Mazdoor Sangh (KMS) and Kisan Sena (KS) made a representation, which also included a lawsuit to strengthen the dispute resolution system in case of any problem in contract farming.
So far, at least 12 farmer groups have extended their support for the laws, the previous ones being from Uttarakhand, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, among other places. In an important outreach to farmers, the BJP has made plans to secure the participation of more than one crore of them in thousands of places across the country on Friday when Prime Minister Modi transfers Rs 18,000 crore to nine crore of farmers and interact with a section. from them.
The leaders of the BJP, from the Union ministers to their MPs, the MLAs, all the elected representatives in addition to the members of the organization, will travel across the country to attend the program and speak with farmers as well. The event coincides with the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which the BJP observes each year as a “day of good governance” since he came to power at the Center in 2014.
Meanwhile, BJP ally and Haryana Senior Deputy Minister Dushyant Chautala said the new central farm laws need many amendments and urged protesting farmers to give “concrete suggestions.” At a press conference in Chandigarh, the leader of the Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) reiterated that he will submit his resignation on the day he feels he cannot guarantee MSP for Haryana agricultural products.
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