Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Feb 3: With the central government team led by the union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar having failed to break the ice even after 11 rounds of talks, the agitating farmers have urged the prime minister Narenrdra Modi and the union home minister Amit Shah to intervene and hold direct talks with the farmers.
A five-point resolution adopted at a “Kisan Mahapanchayat” held at Jind in Haryana and attended by the noted farmer leader Rakesh Tikait, the spokesman of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, issued an appeal to the prime minister and the union home minister to hold direct talks with the farmers.
The four other points incorporated in the resolution remained the same as demanded by the farmers’ unions earlier, repeal of the three contentious farm laws; constitutional guarantee of Minimum Support Price (MSP), implementation of the Swaminathan report and withdrawal of all cases registered against farmers following the January 26 Red Fort incident and their release. It was the fourth such Mahapanchayat held since the Republic Day mayhem that threatened to weaken the farmers’ agitation creating rifts among various farm leaders.
The Mahapanchayat also decided to continue the stir under the banner of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), the umbrella body of the 40 odd farmers unions that had launched the dharna on Delhi’s borders on November 26. “Just as you don’t change the sarpanch midway, we will not change the leadership in the middle of the agitation,” said Tikait.
Addressing the gathering, Tikait said the decision to resume dialogue with the Union government would be taken by the SKM but pointed out that the farmers had not heard anything from the government about the resumption of talks. There was also no information about the prime minister’s reported media statement that the union agriculture minister was only one phone call away from holding talks. He said. Tikait was accompanied on the dais by other farm leaders including Balbir Singh Rajewal of BKU (Rajewal) and Gurnam Singh Chaduni, president of BKU, Haryana.
He said the committee would take a call on the future course of action.
Moments before Tikait was about to address the gathering, the stage collapsed with everyone escaping with minor injuries. The organisers of the Mahapanchayat had earlier said they made arrangement for 50,000 people. But the presence of Rakesh Tikait has attracted more people and farm leaders than what could be accommodated at the venue possibly leading to the collapsing of the stage.
The Mahapanchayat attracted a massive gathering of villagers with a fairly large attendance of women who raised slogans in favour of the farmers. A two- km-long cavalcade of vehicles led to the venue of the Mahapanchayat held at Khandela village in Jind district.
Referring to the concrete and iron barricades erected by the Delhi Police at the Singhu border, Tikait and other speakers said members of the khap would remove them. Tikait also reiterated that Singhu would remain central to the agitation.
Meanwhile, the union agriculture minister denied that the centre was hold any informal talks with other farm leaders. Speaking to a section of the media on the sidelines of a media conference, Tomar said he would inform the media when the formal talks begin. He also refused to answer a question on the agitating farm leaders’ condition that no talks with the government could be held till the people arrested for alleged violence on the Republic Day were released Tomar said he did not want to comment on a law and order issue. “That is not my job,” he said. He suggested that unions should talk to the Police Commissioner regarding such concerns instead.
In a bid to stop all pro-agitation messages on the social media, the centre has directed Twitter to comply with its order related to removal of contents and accounts related to “farmer genocide,” while warning that refusal to do so may invite penal action.
“The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology [MeitY] had passed an interim order dated 31.01.2021 as a matter of emergency blocking 257 URLs and 1 Hashtag under section 69 A of the Information Technology Act, 2000… on the ground that the said URLs and hashtag are spreading misinformation about protests and has the potential to lead to imminent violence affecting public order situation in the country,” a ministry spokesman said.
The microblogging site on Tuesday evening had restored all accounts hours after blocking them citing “legal demand.” Twitter in a meeting with government officials reportedly contested the order arguing that these accounts were “not in violation of Twitter policy”.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to entertain a clutch of petitions demanding judicial investigations into the violence during the tractor rally in Delhi on Republic Day. The court also dismissed another petition seeking direction to the media not to declare farmers as ‘terrorists’ without any evidence.
The former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and PDP president Mehbooba Mufti criticised the multi-layered barricading said while concertina wires and trenches around farmer protest sites have shocked everyone, the sight is far too familiar for the people of Kashmir. “We understand the pain & humiliation inflicted on our farmers & stand in solidarity with them,” she said in a tweet adding the government cannot “run roughshod” over those who protest.
