Fifth Round Talks End; Protesting Farmers, Centre to Meet Again on Feb 22

CHANDIGARH:
The fifth round of talks after a gap of almost a year, between protesting farmers — mainly from Punjab and Haryana — and the central team led by Union Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Pralhad Joshi, ended on Friday with both sides having agreed to meet again on February 22 amid the attendance of Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

However, the venue of the meeting is likely to be New Delhi or Chandigarh.

A 28-member delegation of farmers, including fasting leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal and Sarwan Singh Pandher, attended the meeting with the Centre to resolve their issues, including a legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP).

After the meeting, Dallewal, who reached here after a four-hour journey in an ambulance, told the media that the government again invited the farmers to meet on February 22 with the presence of Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

“The meeting ended and it was a positive meeting. The government has called another meeting on February 22, which will be attended by Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan along with two other ministers. The meeting could happen either in Delhi or in Chandigarh, but it will be decided later,” he said.

Official sources said the meeting which lasted for nearly three hours was held in a cordial atmosphere with both sides having the dinner at the venue. Punjab Agriculture Minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian, Chief Secretary KAP Sinha, DGP Gaurav Yadav and Additional Chief Secretary (Agriculture) Anurag Verma also participated in the talks.

The protesting farmers and the Centre have held four rounds of talks and in their last meeting on February 18, 2024, the Union government had offered farmers a five-year contract under which the government would buy pulses, maize and cotton at MSP, which the farmers rejected.

The Union Minister Joshi was accompanied by Devesh Chaturvedi, Union Secretary of Agriculture, Farmers Welfare. This meeting came in the wake of four rounds of dialogue between the central government and the agitating farmers that were held in February last year.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had attended the meetings on February 8, 12, 15 and 18 last year, but talks had remained inconclusive. The farmers have been staging a sit-in protest for a year at Shambhu, the border point between Punjab and Haryana.

Farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher told the media at Shambhu, where a Mahapanchayat was held on Thursday to mark one year of the agitation, that they would make efforts to convince the Centre to fulfil the demands of the farmers.

Dallewal-led Bharatiya Kisan Union (Sidhupur) and Pandher-led Kisan Mazdoor Sangarsh Committee (KMSC), under the banner of Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (non-political), have been camping at the Shambhu and Khanauri borders since February 13 last year after security forces foiled their attempt to march to Delhi to press for their demands.

Earlier, security forces had used tear gas shells as protesting farmers thrice attempted to march towards Delhi at the Shambhu border.

Shambhu, the crossing point near Ambala on National Highway-1, became the flashpoint of the farmers’ protest for a year. Earlier, the 13-month-long agitation of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh, at Delhi borders ended after Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his televised address to the nation on November 19, 2021, announced the government had decided to repeal the three controversial farm laws passed.

Thousands of farmers had been camping at the Delhi border points demanding a repeal of three farm laws, besides demanding a legal guarantee on the MSP for their crops.