Ahead of fifth round of talks with Centre, farmers firm on scrapping of laws

Farmers block a highway near Ghazipur on December 4, 2020. (Express Photo: Prem Nath Pandey)

Ahead of the fifth round of talks with the central government, a member of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) Saturday said farmers would walk out of the meeting if the three farm laws were not withdrawn. Farmer leader Jagmohan Singh Patiala, speaking from Singhu border, said farmers from across the country had decided to attend the meeting as one. “It will be one stage, one morcha and one voice”, he said.

“We are different farmer unions of Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Rajasthan, Telangana, West Bengal and other states. We have resolved that it will be one stage, one morcha and one voice. This voice will seek the scrapping of all central farm laws, guaranteed Minimum Support Price (MSP), the roll back of the electricity Act, and also to keep farmers out of the new air pollution Ordinance,” said Patiala, who is the working committee member of the AIKSCC.

Farmers resolve to have one stage-one morcha and one voice ahead of talks with centre. Scrap the #farmacts or we will walkout, said Jagmohan Singh Patiala working committee member of #AIKSCC #FarmersProtest pic.twitter.com/rxxr8PIn4f

— raakhijagga (@raakhijagga) December 5, 2020

“Few farmer organisations have set up separate stages, but the agenda is the same. Therefore, on Saturday morning, it was resolved to have one stage so as to talk from a common front with the government. When the meeting starts at 2 pm, our first demand will be to scrap the farm laws. If they agree, we will continue with the talks, but we may walk out immediately otherwise,” Patiala said. “Hence, we are not expecting this meeting to last long as the government is just killing our time and is offering negotiations after negotiations.

Patiala’s statement was made through a video message released this morning from the Singhu border where he was interacting with farmers. “Last night, we even got calls from the ministry yet again where they said that 5-7 of our representatives can come for talks and the rest can be briefed later. However, we rejected their suggestion as all the 36 of us wanted to go. We wanted few representatives of other states also to be added, but they were in the mood to talk to only a select few. Hence, we are not hopeful of much out of this meeting as of now.

“Earlier we had decided to boycott this meeting, but we later decided to attend. We want to give a message to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that he must scrap these laws so that we can show face to our generations, and can also die with pride. Otherwise, we will keep sitting here… you can take us to jails or do whatever with us,” he added.

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