Farm Laws: Centre hopeful of breakthrough, meets farmers for sixth round of talks in Delhi

A meeting is underway between the Centre and protesting farmer unions to resolve the over month-long deadlock over three agricultural laws passed by the Parliament. Three Union ministers are currently holding talks with representatives of several farmer unions. The meeting is underway at the Vigyan Bhawan in the national capital. This is the sixth round of talks and is being held after almost three weeks. The two sides met last on December 5.

The farmer unions, who have been agitating at several entry points of Delhi, are firm that they will only discuss modalities of repealing the recent agri laws. They also said that the government must give a written assurance about the Minimum Support Price (MSP).

On Monday, the Centre invited farmer unions for a fresh round of talks asking them to hold a discussion with an ‘open mind’ and find a ‘logical solution’ to the stalemate over agri laws.

But the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, the umbrella organisation which represents the farmer unions, wrote a letter to the Centre saying that the agenda of the sixth round of talks must include the modalities for repealing the three contentious laws.

The sixth round of talks was initially scheduled for December 9. However, it was cancelled after an informal meeting between Union Home Minister Amit Shah and some representatives of farmer unions failed to reach any conclusion. However, the government later sent a draft proposal suggesting some amendments. The draft proposal also talked about written assurance on the MSP but ruled out a repeal of the laws.

Thousands of farmers have been protesting against the three new agri laws for more than a month. Most of the farmers protesting against the laws are from Haryana and Punjab. Farmers fear that these laws will ‘weaken’ the MSP and leave them at the mercy of big corporate

The government claims that these laws are major agriculture reforms and will help in increasing the income of farmers.