Chandigarh: Leaders of the ongoing farmers’ agitation on the Punjab and Haryana border have said they were “tricked” by the three Union ministers during the fourth round of talks Sunday.
Talking to the media at the Shambhu border Monday, farmer leaders Jagjit Singh Dallewal and Sarvan Singh Pandher said they were made to believe during talks that the offer of a five-year guarantee for minimum support price (MSP) on five crops was universal – that is, for every farmer across the country.
“But following the talks the ministers told reporters that the guarantee for five crops was only to those farmers who shifted from paddy cultivation. This was to encourage diversification of crops,” alleged the farmer leaders.
Pandher said this meant that those farmers who were already growing these crops were not included in the five-year MSP guarantee.
Pandher added: “Since we thought this offer was valid for the whole country, we told the ministers that we would consider their proposal seriously and get back to them. However, a day later, we realised what ministers said to us in the meeting was not the same as what they told the media outside the venue. The proposal given by them is not what we were demanding and we reject it.”
The agitating farmers have decided to continue with their original programme of moving towards Delhi Wednesday at 11 am.
The farmer leaders, who had till now invited Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to the talks, have lashed out at the AAP leader “for not doing anything to ease the situation on the Shambhu border”.
Dallewal said the Punjab government was not showing any urgency in giving compensation to the families of the two farmers who had passed away at the Shambhu border during the agitation.
He added that the chief minister had previously assured them he would intervene with the central government for the restoration of internet services in Punjab’s districts.
Dallewal said: “However, it has come to our notice that internet services in some districts of Punjab, including Patiala, have been shut down on the orders of the local administration like deputy commissioners… If this is true, then it is extremely unfortunate that the CM was saying one thing and his government doing another.”
The ongoing agitation is largely led by two organisations of farmers. Dallewal, who is the president of the BKU (Sidhupur) in Punjab, is also heading the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (non-political), a larger body that includes farmer bodies of other states.
Pandher is the general secretary of the Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee (KMSC) in Punjab and is heading the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM), which is a conglomerate of multiple farm labour unions.
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), a conglomerate of over 30 farmer bodies of Punjab that led the 2020-21 farmers’ agitation at the Singhu border, has not joined the ongoing agitation, but is supporting it from outside.
On Tuesday, the SKM welcomed the decision of leaders to reject the central proposal. In a press statement, a spokesperson appealed for “issue-based countrywide unity in struggles” and asked various farmer bodies to support the SKM’s programme of protests in constituencies of the BJP-NDA MPs on Wednesday.
The farmers’ body said anyone who termed MSP “a fiscal disaster” was only being given corporate logic.
The statement said experts serving corporate interests are hellbent on misinterpreting the MSP legal guarantee for procurement of all crops as a “fiscal disaster”.
It said the Centre’s argument that the government would have to fork out Rs 11 lakh crore for providing MSP for all 23 crops was also baseless since legally guaranteed procurement did not mean the government had to pay and procure but to ensure corporate forces shared their profit with farmers.
“… as remunerative price and the Union and State governments and the public sector abet the producer cooperatives and non-corporate private sector to undertake post-harvesting operations of procurement, primary and secondary processing, storage and infrastructure building and branded marketing. This policy shift will bring employment generation, better price and wage to workers and farmers and more tax,” the statement added.
The SKM had warned leaders of the ongoing agitation that it would oppose them if they agreed to the proposal.
Meanwhile, the Punjab Opposition has again trained its guns on Bhagwant Mann, asking him to fulfil his promise of bringing in a state act to make MSP a legal right.
Congress leader Navjot Sidhu called Mann an agent of the Centre. “You are the greatest mind ever to stay in prep school as you promised MSP on all 22 cops … let sanity prevail and call a Vidhan Sabha session to pass a resolution that law be framed for assured purchase of whole produce of 23 crops at MSP determined as per C2+50 Swaminathan formula!” Sidhu posted on X.
As CM Pb you backed and supported the deceitful proposal of contract farming by the Union govt and MSP procurement of 5 crops through cooperative’s … this would have meant bondage and subjugation; rejected by the farmers two yrs ago as one the black laws was contract farming ……
— Navjot Singh Sidhu (@sherryontopp) February 20, 2024
Punjab BJP head Sunil Jakhar said the talks were bound to fail because Mann was acting as the lawyer of farmers. He said Mann had everything to gain from the “failure of the talks”, as he would now be able to show the central government in a bad light. He would also be able to redirect farmers to Delhi when they had initially wanted to march to Chandigarh, he said, adding that Mann “has succeeded in this mission by jeopardising the sincere efforts of both the farmers and the central ministerial team to arrive at a solution”.
“Punjab wonders who gave the vakalat nama (authority) to represent the farmers to such a person — who not only backtracked on his promise to provide MSP within 5 minutes of formation of his govt but also cheated Punjab farmers out of the compensation for flood damage,” Jakhar posted on X.
It is most unfortunate that the negotiations between the farmers and the central govt have not fructifed.
With Sh Bhagwant Mann himself -of all the people-acting as the lawyer for the farmers, these negotiations were destined to fail – because CM Mann had every thing to gain…
— Sunil Jakhar (@sunilkjakhar) February 20, 2024
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) also held Mann responsible for the breakdown of talks between the farmer unions and the centre, saing that the chief minister’s “double talk” during negotiations had failed the farming community and forced them on the path of agitation.
In a statement issued Tuesday, SAD leader Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra appealed to the central government not to try to muzzle the peaceful protest of farmers, adding, “in a democracy peaceful protest is a fundamental right and farmers should be allowed to peacefully proceed to Delhi”.
Chandumajra said Mann had practiced duplicity during the past one week. “On the one hand, he allowed the Haryana Police to fire tear gas shells and rubber pellets on farmers while on the other he misled the Centre as to the real demands of the farming community”. He said the chief minister had a lot of explaining to do. “He should tell why he ordered the Patiala deputy commissioner to give in writing demanding closure of internet services in the district. He should also tell why Punjab police has not registered cases against Haryana policemen for shelling farmers with plastic bullets,” said Chandumajra.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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