The Center and protesting farmers’ unions will hold talks on Wednesday, the sixth round of dialogue between the two sides to resolve the deadlock. The talks will take place in Delhi after farmers’ unions agreed to restart negotiations.
The Center had sent an invitation to these unions on Monday to hold talks. Farmers remain firm in their position that parliaments will only be in the mode of repealing the three new agricultural laws and giving a legal guarantee on the minimum price of sustenance (MSP), among other issues.
Ahead of the crucial talks, Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and Piyush Goyal met with BJP leader and Interior Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday.
Tomar, the minister of agriculture, and Goyal, the minister of food and consumer affairs, and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry Som Parkash have been representing the Center in talks with farmers. Tomar had said Monday that he hopes for an early solution to the deadlock.
A total of five rounds of talks, including one on December 1, 3 and 5, have failed to break the deadlock between the two sides. The sixth round was originally scheduled for December 9, but talks were suspended after an informal meeting of Interior Minister Shah with some union leaders failed to make any progress.
Farmers unions have postponed their proposal to march tractors against controversial farm laws until Thursday so that the demonstration does not conflict with their talks with the government.
Thousands of protesting farmers, mostly from Punjab and Haryana, have been camping at three border points in Delhi, Singhu, Ghazipur and Tikri, for more than a month, demanding the repeal of the three agricultural laws and the legal guarantee for MSP .
The opposition has also been pressuring the government to find a solution to end this stalemate. While Congress demands an immediate repeal of all three laws, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) accused the Center of demolishing farm laws without consulting the states.
The head of the PCN, Sharad Pawar, said that the opposition parties will accept a call on their future course of action on Wednesday if the government fails to resolve the impasse.
The three laws that protesters oppose are the Draft Law on Trade and Trade in Agricultural Products (Promotion and Facilitation), 2020, the Farmers Agreement (Empowerment and Protection) on Price Guarantee and the Draft Law on Services. Agriculture, 2020, and the Essential Products (Amendment) Bill, 2020 which were passed by Parliament in September.
(With inputs from agencies)
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