Three union ministers joined farm leaders on Wednesday to share food at ‘langar’ organized by farmers protesting during their sixth round of talks to resolve the deadlock on new farm laws.
Food from the ‘langar’ (community kitchen) arrived in a van at the meeting place, Vigyan Bhawan, after about two hours of discussions and the two parties took a break for tea and snacks.
Sources present at the scene said Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Food and Rail Minister Piyush Goyal, and State Minister of Commerce Som Parkash joined farmer leaders to share their langar food during the recess.
Peasant leaders said the talks were continuing and that they were going “in terms of the agenda.”
Before the start of the meeting, some union leaders had said that farmers in some parts of the country are being forced to sell crops, including rice, below the Minimum Livelihood Price, as market rates have fallen, claiming that the agitation will continue until the government agrees with their demands. .
“After new agricultural laws were implemented in Uttar Pradesh, crop prices fell by 50 percent. Crops are purchased below MSP. Rice sells for 800 rupees a quintal. We will raise these issues at the meeting, ”Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait told reporters.
“We will not leave Delhi until our demands are met. We will celebrate the new year at the borders, ”he said.
Punjab Peasant Leader Baldev Singh Sirsa attended the meeting carrying posters with media reports on fraudulent cases reported in Guna and Hosangabad after the implementation of the new laws.
“We don’t have any new agenda. The government is smearing us by saying that farmers don’t come for talks. So we gave December 29 the date for the talks. We have given them our clear agenda, but the government insists that the laws are beneficial to farmers, ”Sirsa said.
Showing media reports, he said that more fraudulent cases are being reported after the implementation of the new laws and that these issues will be addressed at the meeting.
The meeting between three trade union ministers and representatives of 41 farmer groups started at around 2.30 pm in Vigyan Bhawan.
Tomar heads the government side, which also included Goyal and Parkash, who is a MP from Punjab.
The sixth round of talks between the two sides takes place after a big gap. The fifth round of talks took place on December 5.
The protesting farmers’ unions remain in their position that the discussions will only be about the modalities of repealing the three new agricultural laws and giving a legal guarantee on the MSP, among other issues.
On Monday, the Center invited unions to the next round of talks on December 30 on all relevant issues to find a “logical solution” with an “open mind” to the prolonged stagnation of the three new farm laws that were enacted in September.
But in its Tuesday letter, Samyukt Kisan Morcha, the umbrella organization representing farmers’ unions, said modalities to repeal the three contentious laws and a legal guarantee on the minimum subsistence price (MSP) should be part of the schedule.
The sixth round of talks was originally scheduled for December 9, but was called off after an informal meeting of Interior Minister Shah with some union leaders failed to make any progress.
However, the government had followed up Shah’s meeting with a draft proposal sent to these farmers’ unions in which he had suggested 7-8 amendments to the new laws and written guarantees on the MSP’s procurement system. The government has ruled out repealing the three farm laws.
Thousands of farmers, mainly from Punjab and Haryana, are protesting at various borders in the national capital for more than a month against these three new laws.
The government has presented these laws as major agricultural reforms aimed at helping farmers and increasing their incomes, but protesting unions fear that the new legislation has left them at the mercy of large corporations by weakening the MSP and mandi systems.
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