By Ananya Sharma
New Delhi: Calling it “vague”, the farmers today rejected the government’s draft proposal to amend the farm laws and threatened to block the Jaipur-Delhi and Delhi-Agra expressway on December 12 along with all the highways leading to the national capital. They warned of further intensifying their ongoing protest with a nationwide protest on December 14. They will further force all toll gates to be closed.
Having cancelled the today’s scheduled sixth round of meeting with Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar after 13 farmer union leaders had met Home Minister Amit Shah last night, now the farmers have ruled out any further meeting with the government unless the government repeals the three agri laws.
Also read: Government ready to amend agri laws; farmers cancel tomorrow’s meeting with Tomar
“We won’t hold any other meetings with the government. We want that government to take back all the farm laws,” Dharmendra Malik, General Secretary of Bharatiya Kisan Union — on of the 13 Unions that were invited by Shah for the meeting on Tuesday — told globalbihari.com. He claimed the the amendments suggested by the government was vague and had no benefit for the farmers. “We have rejected the proposal and we do not agree with this amendment. The draft proposal vaguely mentions about opening gates of court, and that the government will think about amending the electricity bill, and making APMC strong. We want Minimum Support Price guarantee in writing from the government,” Malik said.
The government on Wednesday had proposed to give written assurance that the existence of MSP will continue and that it will also make necessary amendments on at least seven issues and address the apprehensions about the collapse of the mandi system.
Farmer Leader Darshan Pal said that Shah’s proposal mentioned the same things as the Agriculture Minister Narender Singh Tomar had already told the farmer leaders in their previous meetings. Another farmer leader Shiv Kumar Kakka told mediapersos that there was nothing new in the proposal and that the ‘Sanyukta Kisan Committee’ had unanimously and completely rejected it.
Meanwhile, as the farmers’ protest entered 14th day, senior Opposition leaders including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar and Left leaders Sitaram Yechury and D Raja called on the President, Ram Nath Kovind, and submitted a memorandum demanding to repeal the new farm laws. “We urge upon you, as the custodian of the Indian Constitution, to persuade “your government” not to be obdurate and accept the demands raised by India’s annadatas,” the memorandum said.
In a late evening development, Agriculture Minister Tomar had a meeting with Home Minister Shah. What transpired in the meeting was not immediately known.
In the meantime, in London, the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson mixed up the issue of farmers’ protests with Pakistan. In response to a query raised by a member Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi in the British Parliament today that whether Boris would “convey to the Indian prime minister our heartfelt anxieties and our hopes for a speedy resolution to the current deadlock, and does he agree that everyone has a fundamental right to peaceful protest?”, Boris responded: “Our view is the right honourable gentleman knows well is that of course, we have serious concerns about what is happening between India and Pakistan. But these are pre-eminently matters between those two governments to settle, and I know he appreciates this point.”
