Centre should resolve farmers' issues in the upcoming meeting that comes after a year-long protest over the legal guarantee to MSP for crops, among other things, said the farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher on Thursday.
The Centre will hold a meeting with Punjab's protesting farmers on February 14 in Chandigarh to discuss their demands, thus ending a stalemate over the resumption of a dialogue with the agitators, who have been demanding a legal guarantee on the MSP for crops.
Pandher spoke to the reporters at the Shambhu border point, where a Kisan Mahapanchayat was held to mark the completion of one year of the ongoing agitation.
He said that they will make efforts to move the Centre towards resolving the farmers' issues in the meeting.
Farmer leader Abhimanyu Kohar said that Jagjit Singh Dallewal, who is on an indefinite fast, will make his best efforts to participate in the meeting to put forth farmers' demands.
He said that Dallewal will try to participate in the meeting but he is not keeping well.
"Dallewal wants to attend the meeting to put forth farmers' demands before the Centre," Kohar said.
Dallewal, who is the convener of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political), has been on an indefinite hunger strike at the Khanauri border point since November 26 last year in support of various demands including a legal guarantee to minimum support price for crops.
On January 18, a delegation of senior officials from the Union Agriculture Ministry, led by joint secretary Priya Ranjan, invited the representatives of Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha for a meeting to discuss their demands on February 14 in Chandigarh.
In the letter last month addressed to the SKM (Non-Political) and KMM, it was stated that a meeting with the ministers of the government of India and the Punjab government regarding the demands of the farmers' unions had been convened on February 14 at Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration Punjab (MGSIPA), Sector-26, Chandigarh.
This is in continuation of the previous meeting held with the farmers' representatives last year, the letter had stated.
Following the invitation to the meeting, Dallewal had agreed to take medical aid but refused to end his fast unto death.
Four rounds of meetings had taken place between the Central ministers and protesting farmers on February 8, 12, 15, and 18 last year, but talks had remained inconclusive.
A panel of three union ministers then -- Arjun Munda, Piyush Goyal, and Nityanand Rai -- had held talks with representatives of farmers on February 18 last year. The farmers had rejected the Centre's proposal of buying pulses, maize, and cotton crops at MSP by the government agencies for five years.
Addressing the 'mahapanchayat' at the Shambhu border point on Thursday, Pandher said the government of India should bring a concrete solution to the farmers' issues.
"Holding an agitation is not our wish. We will fight till a legal guarantee to MSP is given," he said.
Pandher had earlier said that a group of farmers would resume its foot march to Delhi from the Shambhu border on February 25 if the Centre does not find a "suitable solution" regarding their demands in the upcoming meeting.
Meanwhile, Pandher asked the Punjab government to convene a session of the State Assembly to reject the draft of the National Policy Framework on Agricultural Marketing.
Farmers, under the banner of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, have been camping at the Shambhu and Khanauri border points between Punjab and Haryana since February 13 last year, after security forces did not allow them to march to Delhi to press for their various demands.
Besides a legal guarantee on the minimum support price (MSP) for crops, the farmers are demanding a debt waiver, pension for farmers and farm labourers, no hike in the electricity tariff, withdrawal of police cases, and "justice" for the victims of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence.
Reinstatement of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013, and compensation to the families of the farmers who died during a previous agitation in 2020-21 are also part of their demands.
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