New Delhi, December 08:
Hours ahead of a meeting with Union home minister Amit Shah, farmers have reiterated their stance of not compromising on their demand that the three contentious farm laws be repealed.
“There is no midway, we will demand just ‘yes’ or ‘no’ from Home Minister Amit Shah at today’s meeting,” farmer leader Rudru Singh Mansa told news agency PTI.
On the day of a nationwide strike or Bharat Bandh observed in protest against the farm laws, Amit Shah invited the farmers for a meeting at his residence at 7pm. “The home minister’s office sent a message. We will meet him. Efforts to resolve the farmers’ protests are going on. Our bandh today has been successful and peaceful,” said Rakesh Tikait, the leader of Bharatiya Kisan Union’s Tikait faction, a farmers’ union.
The meeting comes a day ahead of the sixth round of talks between farm unions and the government, in which both sides will try to resolve the impasse caused by the farm-reform laws approved by Parliament in September.
The three farm laws that the farmers want the Narendra Modi government to revoke are — the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act 2020.
Farmers say the reforms would make them vulnerable to exploitation by big corporations, erode their bargaining power and stop the government’s purchase of staples at guaranteed prices. The government, on the other hand, hails the laws as reforms that have opened new doors of possibilities for farmers. “These reforms have not only broken shackles of farmers but have also given new rights and opportunities for them. These rights started mitigating problems that were being faced by farmers in a short span of time,” prime minister Narendra Modi said.
