The protesting farmers, as announced, are likely to picket toll plazas today as the standoff with the Centre over the three farm laws continues, reported Hindustan Times.
This is despite the Centre sending a fresh invitation to the protesters urging them to resume talks and fix a date. The ‘Dilli Chalo’ protest against three agricultural laws called by several thousand farmers on November 26 entered the 30th day on Friday, December 25.
The Centre’s fresh invitation comes after the unions in a letter said the agenda should be revised as they had already rejected the proposals after the 5th meeting.
However, the Centre said it would ‘not be’ logical to include any new demand related to minimum support price (MSP) in the agenda as it was out of the purview of the new farm laws.
‘Any new demand related to MSP, which is out of the ambit of farm laws, is not logical to include in the talks. As informed earlier, the government is ready to discuss all the issues raised by farmer unions,’ the three-page letter written by agriculture ministry joint secretary Vivek Aggarwal said.
After the Centre’s statement on MSP, the farmers on Thursday said that the MSP could not be separated from the demand of repealing the contentious laws, asserting the issue of a legal guarantee for it is a key part of their agitation.
The unions are likely to hold a meeting today to discuss the Centre’s letter and what to write in the formal response to the ministry.
The farmers have alleged that the Centre’s repeated invitation without changing the agenda is only propaganda against the protesting farmers to create an impression that they (farmers) are not interested in the dialogue.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will interact with farmers from six states at 12 noon via video conferencing as he will release a fund of Rs 18,000 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme. The event coincides with former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s birth anniversary which the BJP observes every year as ‘good governance day’.
