Punjab’s largest kisan union Ugrahan not invited for talks by Amit Shah

Vishav Bharti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 8

Union Home Minister Amit Shah chose not to invite Punjab’s biggest farm organisation, the BKU (Ugrahan), for talks on Tuesday. On November 27, when the union began its march to Delhi, Shah had called up its president Joginder Singh Ugrahan, inviting him to ‘informal’ talks, which the latter declined.

On Tuesday, Shah invited 13 organisations, including nine from Punjab. He seems to have deliberately ignored the BKU (Ugrahan). Ugrahan claimed that such attempts to “divide” Punjab’s farmers had been made in the past too.

The buzz since Sunday was that the farm unions had been approached by Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh for parleys and had sought a list of their representatives. This triggered a debate among the 32 unions as they had already rejected a similar proposal for talks earlier.

Sources said six organisations, including the Kirti Kisan Union, Bharti Kisan Union (Krantikari) and Doaba Kisan Union, opposed any “informal” talks, arguing the government was trying to divide the farmers.