After the eight-hour meeting, Tomar said the government will consider all issues on Friday, and so will union leaders, before returning to the table on Saturday. When asked if the government is ready to amend the three contentious laws, he said: “I am not a fortune teller. When we meet the next day, we hope to move towards a resolution.” “There should be no question on anyone’s mind. Still, if farmers have any concerns on that front, we want to assure them that the new laws do not pose any threat to the MSP system,” he said.
Meanwhile, Akali Dal stalwart and former Punjab chief minister, Parkash Singh Badal, returned his Padma Vibhushan award in protest against the Center’s new agricultural laws. Akali dissident leader and Rajya Sabha member Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa also said that he will return the Padma Bhushan awarded to him last year. Earlier, some former Punjabi athletes also threatened to return their awards.
Badal’s move comes more than two months after his Shiromani Akali Dal withdrew from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) in the Center, protesting against the three laws that deregulate the sale of crops. Intensifying their uproar, thousands of protesting Uttar Pradesh farmers blocked National Highway 9 near the UP Gate, while thousands from Punjab and Haryana stayed elsewhere in the national capital. The protesters had threatened on Wednesday to block other roads in Delhi in the coming days if the new farm laws are not removed soon.
The leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, Naresh Tikait, held a ‘maha panchayat’ at the place of protest: the Gazipur border. He said there is no middle way to reach an agreement on the MSP issue, adding that the government must give farmers written guarantees. Punjab’s Chief Minister Amarinder Singh appealed to Union Interior Minister Amit Shah and protesting farmers to find an early solution to the stalemate, saying the unrest was affecting Punjab’s economy and the security of the nation.
Singh met Shah at the latter’s residence here. “I came to meet with the interior minister to reiterate our position and make a request to him and the farmers to resolve this soon because this (turmoil) affects the economy of my Punjab as well as the security of the nation,” he said. When asked if he was trying to mediate between the agitated farmers and the central government, Singh said a discussion was taking place between the two sides. Peasant leaders, who left the meeting place shouting slogans, said that the talks remained stalled and some of them threatened to boycott any other meeting if a solution was not found at Thursday’s meeting.
“Discussions are over on our part. Our leaders have said that they will not attend any more meetings if the government does not come up with a solution today,” said Pratibha Shinde, a member of the AIKSCC (Kishan Sangharsh Coordination Committee for All India) and chairman of Lok Sangharsh Morcha, who represents farmers in Maharashtra and Gujarat. Another farmer leader, Kulwant Singh Sandhu, said the government made many proposals, including on MSP and the procurement system, which would be discussed among farmers’ organizations on Friday, before the next meeting.
AIKSCC Secretary General Hannan Mollah said that the main demand from the unions remains the repeal of the three laws and that the government also listened to the 8-10 specific deficiencies pointed out by peasant leaders. “We don’t want any amendments. We want the laws to be repealed,” he said.
Mollah said that all farmers’ organizations would meet at 11am on Friday to receive a collective call for the next round of talks with the government. The President of the Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ambarta), Rishipal, said: “The government took note of all the points. The ministers assured that they will investigate them and search one day.” However, the farmers’ unions stuck to their demand to repeal the three farm laws, otherwise they will intensify the protest, he said.
In addition to Tomar, the government side included Railways, Food and Consumer Affairs, and the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Piyush Goyal; and the Minister of State for Commerce Som Parkash, who is also a deputy from Punjab. The peasant leaders present at the meeting rejected the lunch offered by the government and preferred to eat the food transported in a van from the Singhu border, where thousands of their colleagues are sitting in protest. They also did not accept the tea and water offered to them during the meeting, which began around noon.
The previous round of talks took place on December 1, but ended in a stalemate even after three hours of discussion, as farmer groups rejected the government’s suggestion of a new committee to examine their problems. Farmers from various districts of western Uttar Pradesh continued their demonstration sitting on the Chilla border between Noida and Delhi amid a heavy deployment of security personnel. The protest also led to the partial closure of a key highway connecting Noida and Delhi. One carriageway of the Delhi-Noida Link highway, from Delhi to Noida, was open to travelers, while the other side, Noida to Delhi, remained closed, causing inconvenience to travelers.
The Delhi-Haryana border at Jharoda and Jhatikra remained closed to the movement of traffic. The Badusarai border is open only for two-wheelers. However, people can travel to Haryana through the border points of Dhansa, Daurala, Kapashera, Rajokri, NH-8, Bijwasan / Bajghera, Palam Vihar and Dundahera, the traffic police said.
Police also closed the Haryana-Delhi border at Singhu and Tikri to traffic for the eighth day in a row. In Chennai, the DMK said its boss MK Stalin will lead party-sponsored rallies in different cities of Tamil Nadu on Saturday in support of farmers. Stalin will participate in the protest in Salem, Tamil Nadu’s native district, Chief Minister K Palaniswami, according to a party statement.
The BJP coalition partner JJP in Haryana demanded the withdrawal of cases registered against farmers who participated in the ‘Delhi Chalo’ march. Jannayak Janta Party Leader Digvijay Singh Chautala said the cases against farmers should be dropped to ensure the situation does not get worse and mistrust is not generated between farmers and the government.
Enacted in September, the laws have been projected by the government as major reforms in the agricultural sector that will eliminate middlemen and allow farmers to sell anywhere in the country. However, protesting farmers have expressed fear that the new laws would pave the way to remove the Minimum Livelihood Price safety cushion and scrap the mandis, leaving them at the mercy of large corporations. The Center has repeatedly stated that these mechanisms will continue.
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