28-member farmers' delegation to attend Feb 14 meeting with Centre

Chandigarh, Feb 13 (PTI) A 28-member delegation of farmers will participate in a meeting to be held on February 14 with the Centre to resolve the agitating farmers' issues, including legal guarantee for MSP.

Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema said the state government has not yet received any formal or informal invitation for the meeting. However, he would be willing to attend the meeting, if invited.

This comes after four rounds of meetings between the Centre and the agitating farmers that were held in February last year.

Farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher said that they will make efforts to move the Centre towards resolving the farmers' issues in the meeting.

Pandher spoke to the reporters at the Shambhu border point, where a Kisan Mahapanchayat was held to mark the completion of one year of the ongoing agitation.

A joint statement issued by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, which are spearheading the ongoing stir, on Thursday evening said a 28-member delegation of both the forums will participate in the meeting with the Centre.

Farmer leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal, who is on an indefinite fast, said he will also attend the meeting.

Dallewal, who is the convener of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political), has been on an indefinite hunger strike at the Khanauri border point since November 26 last year in support of various demands including a legal guarantee to minimum support price for crops.

Prominent farmer leaders, who will be part of the delegation, are Sarwan Singh Pandher, Abhimanyu Kohar, Kaka Singh Kotra, Sukhjit Singh, P R Pandian, Arun Sinha, Lakhwinder Singh, Jaswinder Longowal, M S Rai, Nand Kumar, Balwant Singh Behramke and Inderjit Singh Kotbudha.

On January 18, a delegation of senior officials from the Union Agriculture Ministry, led by joint secretary Priya Ranjan, invited the representatives of SKM (Non-Political) and KMM for a meeting to discuss their demands on February 14 in Chandigarh.

In the letter last month addressed to the SKM (Non-Political) and KMM, it was stated that a meeting with the ministers of the government of India and the Punjab government regarding the demands of the farmers' unions had been convened on February 14 at Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration Punjab (MGSIPA), Sector-26, Chandigarh.

This is in continuation of the previous meeting held with the farmers' representatives last year, the letter had stated.

Following the invitation to the meeting, Dallewal had agreed to take medical aid but refused to end his fast unto death.

Four rounds of meetings had taken place between the Central ministers and protesting farmers on February 8, 12, 15 and 18 last year, but talks had remained inconclusive.

A panel of three union ministers then -- Arjun Munda, Piyush Goyal and Nityanand Rai -- had held talks with representatives of farmers on February 18 last year. The farmers had rejected the Centre's proposal of buying pulses, maize and cotton crops at MSP by the government agencies for five years.

Addressing the 'mahapanchayat' at the Shambhu border point on Thursday, Pandher said the government of India should bring a concrete solution to the farmers' issues.

"Holding an agitation is not our wish. We will fight till a legal guarantee to MSP is given," he said.

Pandher had earlier said that a group of farmers would resume its foot march to Delhi from the Shambhu border on February 25 if the Centre does not find a "suitable solution" regarding their demands in the upcoming meeting.

Meanwhile, Pandher asked the Punjab government to convene a session of the State Assembly to reject the draft of the National Policy Framework on Agricultural Marketing.

Farmer leaders at the Shambhu mahapanchayat said farmers with this agitation have made every section of the country realize that the MSP guarantee law is the right of the farmers of the country and they should get it.

They further said the first death anniversary of farmer Shubhkaran Singh will be observed on February 21 in Balloh village in Bathinda.

Shubhkaran, a farmer from Punjab, had died during a clash at Khanauri border when protesters tried to march towards Delhi on February 21 last year.

Farmers, under the banner of the SKM (Non-Political) and KMM, have been camping at the Shambhu and Khanauri border points between Punjab and Haryana since February 13 last year, after security forces did not allow them to march to Delhi to press for their various demands.

Besides a legal guarantee on the minimum support price (MSP) for crops, the farmers are demanding a debt waiver, pension for farmers and farm labourers, no hike in the electricity tariff, withdrawal of police cases and "justice" for the victims of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence.

Reinstatement of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013 and compensation to the families of the farmers who died during a previous agitation in 2020-21 are also part of their demands. PTI CHS SUN HIG HIG

Source: PTI