Punjab’s as many as 30 farmers’ unions on Thursday decided to attend the meeting with the Union Ministers at New Delhi on Friday to jointly demand the revocation of three Agriculture Laws, withdrawal of ordinance on stubble burning, among other issues.
Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KMSC), which had earlier also refused to accept the Centre’s offer to hold talks, has once again decided not to attend the Friday’s meeting which is expected to be attend by the Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, and Railways Minister Piyush Goyal.
The 30 farmers’ unions, during its five-hour long meeting at Chandigarh to chalk out a joint strategy, have formed a panel of three farm leaders — Dr Darshan Pal, Balbir Singh Rajewal, and Kulwant Singh Sandhu — for presenting their case before the Centre, while the representatives of all outfits will participate in the meeting.
“The 30 farmers’ organizations have accepted the Centre’s invitation for talks during the meeting that was chaired by Harmeet Singh Qadian and lasted for about five hours,” said Bhartiya Kisan Union-Ekta (Dakonda) president Buta Singh Burjgill.
The main agenda of the meeting with Union Ministers is to immediately lift the “economic blockade”, forcibly imposed on Punjab, by starting the rail services.
“Our foremost issue would be resuming the train services in Punjab. In fact, we had urged the Centre to start goods trains in Punjab before our meeting with them. Then, revoking the three farm laws, is our primary issue on which we started our fight, besides electricity bill, and ordinance on stubble burning. We have also added the diesel and petrol prices in our list,” said BKU Qadian president Harmeet Singh Qadian, who believed that nothing much would come out of the first meeting.
He said we would demand that taxes on diesel be reduced in wake of the fall in prices of crude oil to benefit the farming community.
Notably, the Union Agriculture secretary had on November 10 invited several farmer organizations to hold talks with Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar and Railways Minister Piyush Goyal. “We have unanimously decided that we will go tomorrow (to Delhi) and hold talks," said Qadian after the meeting. Questioning the Centre for not allowing freight train movement, Qadian said that protesting farmers had already lifted their blockades from rail tracks and vacated platforms.