CHANDIGARH: The sixth round of talks between the government and the agitating farmers will be held on Wednesday, with the Centre sending a formal invite to 40 kisan unions on Monday. Later, the unions conveyed their consent.
Union Agriculture Secretary Sanjay Aggarwal’s letter referred to the response of the unions on December 26 accepting the Centre’s offer for talks and invited them to Vigyan Bhawan in Delhi at 2 pm on December 30 for the dialogue. He reiterated the Centre’s commitment to find a ‘logical resolution’ with an open mind and clear intention.“During this meeting, the concerns of farmers regarding three farmer laws, system of procurement on MSP, ordinance 2020 on Air Quality Management in National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas besides amending the draft Electricity Amendment Bill 2020 would be discussed in detail,” the one-page letter stated.But arriving at a common ground would not be easy as the farmer unions want nothing short of the repeal of the three laws, while the Centre is willing to make amendments but not take the roll back road.
When the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, an umbrella group of 40 farmer unions, had on Saturday written to the government proposed talks on December 29, it had laid out a stiff four-point agenda beginning with the modalities for repealing the three farm laws. The Centre’s letter on Monday mentions the other three points flagged by the unions but skirts the repeal part.
Bharatiya Kisan Union (Lakhowal) general secretary Harinder Singh Lakhowal said, “we decided to attend the December 30 meeting, as we do not want to give the government any chance to say that the farmers backed out of discussions. However, there is no change in our demands.”
Reacting to the vandalisation of over 1,500 telecom towers in Punjab so far, Lakhowal said, “we did not give any call to cut power supply to towers of a specific mobile company, as it would affect studies of students at the time of the pandemic. We only requested people to get their mobile numbers ported to any other mobile operator in protest.”
As for the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee, it found the Centre’s letter cleverly worded while not willing to discuss the full agenda proposed by farmers.
‘Pawar wanted to do it’
Agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar said former PM Manmohan Singh and agriculture minister Sharad Pawar wanted to bring farm reforms during UPA rule, but couldn’t due to political pressure