Farmers’ organisations in Punjab are likely to intensify their ongoing stir against the Centre’s newly-enacted farm laws following the “failure” of talks with its representatives in the national capital on Wednesday.
A meeting to chalk out their future of course of action is scheduled to be held on Thursday morning at Chandigarh.
Miffed over the absence of any Union Cabinet Minister in the meeting to discuss the contentious farm laws, the representatives of 29 farmers’ organizations walked out of the meeting, that lasted for over one and half hours.
Later, the farmers shouted slogans and tore the copies of new farm laws outside the Krishi Bhawan. The farmers, who had reached New Delhi’s Krishi Bhavan on Wednesday morning to hold “talks”, were upset finding the Centre’s Agriculture Secretary Sanjay Agarwal to address their concerns and not any Union Minister.
“Neither the Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar not the Minister of State for Agriculture was present for the meeting,” said a farmers’ leader.
Virtually accusing the Centre of adopting a dual face, the farmers alleged that on one hand, the Union Ministers are holding videoconferencing with the farmers in Punjab, on the other, they were not even making themselves available for the face-to-face talks with the farmers.
Bharatiya Kisan Union (Dakaunda) president Buta Singh Burjgill said that he told the agriculture secretary that “on one side, you have called us for the meeting here and on the other, several union ministers have been holding rallies and doing propaganda in Punjab. These are double standards”
Notably, BJP has deputed as many as eight Union Ministers for holding videoconferencing meetings from October 13 with the farmers in Punjab — the epicenter of the farmers’ agitation against farm bills. Union Ministers, including Hardeep Singh Puri, have been deputed to hold virtual rallies over eight days from October 13 onwards to “address apprehensions” of Punjab’s farmers. As a part of the same, the Union Minister of State for Agriculture Kailash Choudhary held a virtual meeting on Wednesday with farmers of Sangrur and Barnala districts.
The farmers had accepted the Central Agriculture secretary’s “second” invite for the meeting after rejected the first one pointing that no talks would be held with bureaucrats, who have to implement the decisions taken by the Ministers. They had all along been maintaining that they wanted to meet the Prime Minister or the Agriculture Minister to put forth their views regarding the new laws.
“We came for the meeting because we did not want to give the impression that farmers are not open to dialogue.
But we also want to meet the Prime Minister and the Agriculture Minister,” said farmers’ representatives Dr Darshan Pal.
He said that before walking out of the meeting, “we asked the Secretary whether the Centre was really interested in resolving the issue”.
“No proper discussion took place. Neither Union Agriculture Minister nor junior ministers were present to hear our concerns.
We asked why the Minister is not meeting us, why the Government is playing double standards by calling us here and ministers holding virtual meetings in Punjab.
There was no proper response,” said Darshan Pal, adding that a “memorandum of demands” have been submitted to the Government.
Ajad Kisan Sangathan’s Harjinder Singh said that the Agriculture Secretary tried to explain that the new laws are good and will yield good results in future, but we knew that he had no authority and there is no point discussing it with him and thus we decided to boycott the meeting.
“We said we wanted to hold talks with those who framed laws. We are here for table talks with Cabinet-rank ministers but they do not have time for us,” said BKU (Kadiyan) president Harmeet Singh.
Farmers, however, submitted their charter of demands including scrapping new farm laws. BKU Ugrahan state president Joginder Singh, in a representation made to the Government, has demanded repeal of the recent farm laws, legally ensure minimum support price (MSP) for crops, implementation of recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission among others.
Besides blocking rail tracks, farmers have laid siege to toll plazas, fuel pumps, shopping malls of some corporates and staged sit-in outside the residences of several BJP leaders.
FARMERS TO MEET TODAY TO DECIDE FUTURE COURSE OF ACTION
Upset, the farmers’ bodies have decided to intensify its agitation against the three farm laws. “The farmers’ representatives are meeting in Chandigarh on Thursday to discuss the next course of action,” said Bharti Kisan Union (BKU), Rajewal, leader Balbir Singh Rajewal.
A farmers’ leader said that the ongoing agitation would be intensified in the coming days, with more protests against the BJP leaders. “Now, we will not go to Delhi for talks., whoever wanted to talk to us, should come here,” said a farm leader.
After failed talks with the Centre, the farmers’ outfits, including BKU Ekta Ugrahan, started gherao of State BJP leaders at several places in Punjab. BKU Ekta Ugrahan general secretary Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan said that agitation would be intensified by involving all labour classes, besides burning of BJP leaders’ effigies in cities on Dussehra.
BKU Ekta Ugrahan, after lifting the protest from the rail tracks, on Wednesday gheraoed BJP leaders’ residences from 12 to 3 pm in Bathinda district. In another incident in Sangrur, members of various farmer organizations held some BJP leaders captive for three hours in a private school where they had organized a virtual meeting between Union Minister Kailash Choudhary and some farmers of the area to clarify the party’s stand on agriculture laws.