SKM to hold meeting at Singhu border to decide future course of farmers’ agitation today
The meeting will also ponder over pending demands of the protesting farmers, which include legal guarantee on minimum support price (MSP) of crops, withdrawal of cases against farmers, compensation to kin of farmers who lost their lives during the agitation.
A crucial meeting of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of 40 farm unions, will be held at the Singhu border today (December 4) to discuss the future course of farmers’ agitation. This comes days after the Parliament passed the Farm Laws Repeal Bill.
During the key meeting, the farmer leaders will decide whether to end the over-an-year- old agitation. The meeting will also ponder over pending demands of the protesting farmers, which include legal guarantee on minimum support price (MSP) of crops, withdrawal of cases against farmers, compensation to kin of farmers who lost their lives during the agitation.
On Friday, the farmer leaders had said any decision on whether to send five names to the Centre for a panel on MSP will be taken in the meeting as they have not yet received any formal communication from the government.
“Our crucial meeting is tomorrow (Saturday) at 11 am. Along with discussing our pending demands, the SKM will decide the future course of the movement. Since we have not yet got any formal communication from the Centre to submit the names of five farmer leaders for a committee on MSP, we will decide in the meeting whether we have to send the names to them,” SKM core committee member Darshan Pal told PTI.
The Centre on Tuesday had demanded five names from the SKM to form a panel to deliberate on MSP and other issues.
However, the SKM in a statement said that its leaders had received a phone call from the Centre on the issue but there was no formal communication.
On Monday, the central government had passed a bill in Parliament to repeal the three contentious farm laws.
Repeal of the farm laws was one of the main demands of the protesting farmers. But the stalemate continues as their other demands such as legal guarantees for MSPs, compensation to families of farmers who died during the movement and withdrawal of cases against them are still to be met.
The SKM, an umbrella body of 40 farmer unions, in a statement on Friday said that farmers’ struggle for pending demands continues as there is no formal assurance from the Centre as yet on them.
“SKM has not received any reply from the government in response to its letter to the Prime Minister, where SKM had raised six key demands as a pre-condition for withdrawal of the farm movement,” the statement said.
It said that permanent morchas in dozens of places continue at the Delhi borders and elsewhere.
News Credit: India TV News
