Chandigarh, February 17: Farm leaders on Saturday asked the Centre to bring an ordinance on giving a legal guarantee to minimum support price (MSP) for various crops, a key demand of farmers protesting at Shambhu and Khanauri borders of Punjab and Haryana since February 13, last, to press for their various demands.
Notably, the demand comes a day before the fourth round of talks between the farm leaders and Union ministers over farmers' various demands. The previous three rounds of talks between them had failed to yield positive result due to the deadlock over the issue of MSP on which the Union ministers held that a law on it could not be framed and implemented "in a hurry".
Farmers Protesting At Haryana Borders:
For the record, a multitude of farmers from Punjab have been camping at two borders named above for the past five days and even had violent skirmishes with police and paramilitary forces while trying to force their "Delhi Chalo" tractor march into Haryana to reach Delhi on February 13 and 14, leaving dozens of farmers and police personnel seriously injured.
Briefing newspersons at Shambhu border, the farm leaders Sarwan Singh Pandher and Jagjit Singh Dallewal demanded that the Centre bring an ordinance on the MSP if it was serious about salvaging farmers and agriculture.
Pandher and Dallewal said that the Centre could bring an ordinance, if it wanted so and if the government wanted to resolve the farmers’ protest, then it should bring out an ordinance – which has a six-month validity - with immediate effect that it would enact a law on MSP, subsequent to which the discussion could proceed further.
Loan Waiver Demand:
On the issue of loan waivers about which the Centre had held that the loan amount had to be assessed, the farm leaders said that the government, if it had a political will to resolve issues, could have the entire information from banks on its table without much delay.
It may be recalled that Union ministers Piyush Goyal, Arjun Munda and Nityanand Rai and the farmer leaders have the fourth round of talks of latter’s various demands, scheduled to be held here on Sunday evening as the previous meets on February 8, 12 and 15, last had failed to yield any consensus.
Besides a legal guarantee for MSP, the farmers also demand pension for farmers and farm labour, farm debt waiver, withdrawal of police cases and justice for victims of 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence etc.
