Tractor march on, SKM’s key meeting on stir decision today

BATHINDA: A day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to complete the legal process of repealing the three contentious farm laws in the winter session of Parliament, the nine-member core committee of the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) on Saturday decided to go ahead with the preannounced tractor march to the Parliament house on November 29, the opening day of the session.
The SKM said the struggle to get all demands of the protesting farmers fulfilled will continue. It also indicated that its movement for a statutory guarantee of MSP and demand for the withdrawal of the Electricity Amendment Bill will go on.
Pavel Kussa of BKU (Ekta Ugrahan), who represented Joginder Singh Ugrahan at the core committee’s meeting, said: "The committee finds that the manner in which the PM announced to repeal the laws was not correct, as there is an issue of the MSP’s legal guarantee as well. Hence, the action plan stands unchanged."
The SKM committee discussed sending a written outline of the demands to the PM but couldn’t reach a decision, so it has left it to Sunday’s meeting of the general house.
The farmers will also hold a Kisan Mahapanchayat in Lucknow on November 22, while on November 26, they will mark one year of their protests on the Delhi borders. The SKM has appealed to farmers in North Indian states to reach the stir sites on November 26.
‘ Freed’ toll plazas to stay that way
Elaborating on their decision to continue with their protests, SKM said even toll plazas that have been freed up from any fee collections would continue to be kept so. It demanded that junior home minister Ajay Kumar Mishra be arrested and sacked from the Union council of ministers over the Lakhimpur Kheri incident.
Memorial to dead farmers, scrapping of violence cases sought
In states that are far away from Delhi, the first anniversary of the stir will be marked by tractor and bullock cart parades in their capital cities.
On November 28, Maharashtra wide Kisan Mazdoor Mahapanchayat will be organised at Azad Maidan of Mumbai under the banner of Samyukta Shetkari Kamgar Morcha with over 100 organisations.
The morcha demanded that farmers who died during the ongoing protest shuld be remembered during the parliament session and a memorial erected in their name.
The farmers say they don’t trust any promise until the legal process is complete.
Every day, 500 farmers will drive their tractor trailers to the Parliament house, until the session concludes.
The core committee will lay its decision before the SKM’s general house on Sunday but a member of the committee said that in principle, the plan was final.
Demanding a minimum support price (MSP) for every crop and to every farmer, the SKM contested the government’s claim that it’ll cost Rs 16 lakh crore.
By its calculation, the government will pay Rs 1.5 lakh crore and the rest will come from the market.
The farmers also want the government to withdraw all the cases related to violence during the January 26 tractor parade in Delhi and to compensate the families of farmers who died during the agitation.