Farmers Movement Archive

Punjab: Farmers yet to take call on Centre’s invite for more talks

BATHINDA: Farm organisations here on Tuesday said while the Centre had invited them for talks, it was still cracking down on them in Haryana and this showed its “dual standards”. Preparing for the ‘Dilli Chalo’ protest, the farm organisations have not called any meeting to decide about the invitation for second round of talks with Union ministers over the contentious farm laws. Sources within farm organisations said a meeting to talk about the invitation was not likely to be held before the Delhi protest. Union agriculture secretary Sudhanshu Pandey had on Monday late evening sent invitation to 32 farm organisations for second round of talks with Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar on December 3. Krantikari Kisan Union president Darshan Pal said, “The central government is sending invitation but its government in Haryana is cracking down on farmers and also stopping Punjab farmers from heading towards Delhi, under such circumstances the talks lose a lot of significance. The government must win the confidence of farmers and must not provoke them if it is serious about talks. We will decide about the invite at appropriate time.” Earlier, farm organisations had held marathon talks with Tomar and railways minister Piyush Goyal on November 13, though deadlock persisted on resuming freight trains. Before that farmers had boycotted the meeting on October 14 as no minister had turned up for the meeting.

The Times of India

2020-11-25

Amritsar