Farmers Movement Archive

Punjab farm groups accept Centre’s invitation for meeting today

Bathinda: Exactly a month after walking out of a meeting called by the Union government, the farmer organisations of Punjab will again meet the Union ministers in Delhi on Friday. They have decided to raise the issues of farmers, especially their opposition to recently-enacted agriculture laws. The will also urge the Union ministers to resume the operation of good trains at the earliest, as Punjab needs supplies of urea and diammonium phosphate (DAP) for wheat sowing, which has already picked pace. It also needs coal supplies for thermal plants for power generation, bardana for packing paddy crop and space in godowns for storing wheat crop. The trains have been out of operation for over one and half months now, barring two days — October 22 and 23 — when 173 goods trains plied through Punjab. “Our main thrust will be to urge the Union government to either withdraw the three contentious farm legislations or pass another bill with guarantee of minimum support price (MSP) on all crops,” said farm organisations BKU (Kadian) president Harpreet Singh. Krantikari Kisan Union president Darshan Pal said, “We will put across points that are against the interests of farmers before the Union ministers. Our focus will be to make Union government take pro-farmer decisions and either withdraw these legislations or make amendments as desired by farmers.” The farmers have made it clear that their Delhi Chalo programme stands and if talks fail to yield positive results, they will head for the national capital in full might on tractors. Further decision will be taken in a joint meeting on November 18. Earlier, the Union government had called farmer organisations for talks on October 14/ As no minister had turned up for the meeting, the farm organisation members had walked out, refusing to discuss their issues with officers. It is only after BJP senior leader and former minister Surjit Kumar Jyani took a dig at his own party, saying it was insulting farmers by not listening to their grievances, that defence minister Rajnath Singh and Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar met him (Jyani) and scheduled a meeting with protesting farmers on Friday. Farm organisations Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KMSC) and BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) had not attended the meeting. While KMSC has again decided against the Delhi meeting, BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) will attend it even though its members do not have any expectations of a positive outcome. Its general secretary Sukhdev Singh Kokri said, “We had handed over a memorandum outlining our demands in the last meeting on October 14, but nothing came of it. It seems the railway minister may try to put pressure on farmers for resuming train services.”

The Times of India

2020-11-13

Chandigarh