Samyukt Kisan Morcha's 5-member panel to negotiate with Centre

Mukesh Tandon

Tribune News Service

Sonepat, December 4

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of protesting farm unions, on Saturday formed a five-member committee to hold talks with the Union Government over their pending demands.

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The panel members are farmer leaders Balbir Singh Rajewal, Shiv Kumar Kakka, Gurnam Singh Charuni, Ashok Dhawale and Yudhvir Singh. The names were finalised at an SKM meeting held at Singhu to chalk out future course after the repeal of the three contentious farm laws by the government, which was the main demand of the agitating farmers.

Kisan morcha’s next meeting on Dec 7

6 demands: Guaranteed MSP | Withdrawal of cases | Relief for kin of deceased | Withdrawal of electricity Bill | Deletion of Section 15 in law on regulating Delhi air quality | Arrest/sacking of MoS (Home)

Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait said the SKM had decided to continue the agitation till the government accepted six pending demands, including legal guarantee for MSP, withdrawal of police cases against farmers and relief for the kin of the farmers who died during the protest. The other demands are arrest and sacking of Union MoS (Home) Ajay Mishra Teni for “justice” in the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, withdrawal of Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2021, and deletion of Section 15 in a law related to setting up of a commission for regulation of air quality in Delhi-NCR. Claiming that 708 farmers had died during the agitation that completed a year in the last week of November, the SKM sought allotment of land for building a memorial dedicated to the “martyrs”. Scheduling next SKM meeting on December 7, farmer leaders said the agitation would continue till they got “satisfactory response” from the government over their six demands.

The SKM had sent a letter to the government on November 21 in which the pending demands were listed, but no response had been received yet, said Tikait. “Now, the five-member committee will hold talks with the Centre and take our demands to logical conclusion,” he said.