Haryana: The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) will hold a nationwide protest on Monday (today) to protest against Modi govt for not ‘fulfilling its promises’, including setting up of a panel on MSP and withdrawal of cases against farmers, according to its functionaries.
The decision was taken after a day-long closed door meeting held at the Gandhi Peace Foundation at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg earlier, where SKM leaders and members had reviewed the progress made so far by the Centre on the promises made to farmers, including setting up a panel on MSP.
“There has been no progress in fulfilling the promises made by the Centre to farmers on the issue of forming a panel on MSP to make legislation on it, withdrawal of cases against farmers and expulsion of Union minister Ajay Mishra Teni from the Cabinet,” senior SKM member Abhimanyu Kohar had told PTI after the meeting.
“So the SKM has decided to hold a nationwide protest at district and block level on 21 March against the central government for non-fulfilling promises,” he had said.
The SKM, an umbrella body of 40 farm unions, had spearheaded a year-long agitation against the Centre’s three farm laws.
It had suspended the stir on 9 December last year after the government revoked the contentious laws and agreed to consider its six other demands, including withdrawal of cases registered against farmers during the agitation, a legal guarantee on MSP and compensation for kin of farmers who died during the protest.
MSP Guarantee Week
Later in a statement, the SKM said farmers will observe ‘MSP guarantee week’ from 11 to 17 April under its next phase of nationwide campaign.
The non-implementation of the assurances given by the government to the farmers’ movement, even after three months, exposes its anti-farmer intentions, the statement said.
“It was unanimously decided that between 11 and 17 April, a nationwide campaign would be launched by observing MSP Legal Guarantee Week. During this week, all the constituent organizations associated with the SKM will organize demonstrations and seminars, demanding legal guarantee of MSP as recommended by the Swaminathan Commission, the statement said.
The Morcha reviewed the written assurances given by the government to the Samyukta Kisan Morcha on 9 December and found that even after three months the government had not acted upon its key assurances, it said.
“There is no trace of the assurance of forming a committee on MSP. Except Haryana, the police cases registered against the farmers during the agitation in other states have not been withdrawn. Delhi Police has spoken of partial withdrawal of some cases but there is no concrete information about that as well,” it said.
“The SKM has decided to organize a nationwide protest on March 21, regarding the role of the government in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, and the betrayal of the assurances given to the farmers’ movement,” the SKM statement said.
While MSPs have been announced for selected crops since the mid-1960s — during a time when the country was pursuing solutions to achieve food sufficiency under ‘Green Revolution’ strategies — there is no legal basis to the practice, which means that the government is not obligated to come up with MSP or procure all the different crops produced in the country.
MSP was a key factor in the protests over the new farm laws as the rules they brought in paving the way for farmers to sell their produce outside mandis (under the agricultural produce market committee, or APMC, system by doing away with statutory requirements) and engage in contract farming made no mention of buyers needing to pay a minimum price for farm produce.
While the Centre maintained that the new laws would lead to price maximisation for farm produce, the protesting farmers saw the absence of an MSP requirement as a direct threat to their income, claiming that it left them at the mercy of buyers, who could dictate prices to them in a good season. News18.com
