Want Centre To Meet Us on MSP, Deceased Farmers Before SKM's 4 Dec Meet: Tikait
"Our agitation is not ending. The government has not accepted our demands yet," said BKU leader Rakesh Tikait.
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Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait, on Tuesday, 30 November, said the farmer leaders want the Centre to have a meeting with them before the Samyukta Kisan Morcha's (SKM) meeting on 4 December, to discuss the issues of the guaranteed Minimum Support Price (MSP) and the deceased farmers, ANI reported.
"We want the Government of India to have a meeting with us on guaranteed MSP and the farmers who died before our (SKM) meeting on December 4. Our agitation is not ending. The government has not accepted our demands yet," Tikait was quoted as saying by ANI.
Earlier in the day, farmer leader Darshan Pal had said: “Today, the Centre has asked for five names from SKM for the committee that will deliberate on the issue of MSP for crops. We have not yet decided on the names. We will decide this in our December 4 meeting,” he was quoted as saying by PTI.
SKM Confirms Receiving Call from Centre
SKM later confirmed the same. "SKM confirms that there was a telephone call from the Government of India to a Punjab farmer union leader, wherein the Government wanted five names to be suggested from SKM's side for a committee," it said.
"However, we have received no written communication and no details are available so far about what this Committee is about, its mandate, or Terms of Reference. In the absence of such details, it would be premature to comment on this issue," SKM added.
The SKM also said that no meeting had been scheduled between Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and Haryana farm union leaders for Wednesday, 1 December.
"With regard to the news about a meeting between Haryana CM and Haryana farm union leaders tomorrow, we wish to clarify that we have not received any formal or informal invitation from the Haryana government so far," the SKM said.
Earlier, BKU president Harmeet Singh Kadian had told ANI that a meeting of SKM will be held on 1 December. "The next decisions on agitation, over MSP Committee, will be taken in the next meeting. The meeting that was scheduled for 4 December will go on as decided. This is an emergency, special meeting (on 1 December) that will be held by the representatives of farmer organisations who went for 11 rounds of talks.”
On Saturday, 27 November, SKM had said that they would decide the future course of action for the group on 4 December.
Two days later, on Monday, 29 November, in an action-packed first day of the Parliament's winter session, the highly-anticipated Farm Laws Repeal Bill, 2021 was passed in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha within minutes of its introduction, and amid vehement calls for discussion by the Opposition MPs.
This came days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced that the Centre's contentious farm laws would be repealed in the winter session after witnessing over a year-long protest by the farmers.
Later, the SKM released a statement saying that this was the "first major victory of the farmers' movement, while other important demands are still pending."
(With inputs from ANI and PTI.)
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