Farmer leader Sarwan S🐽ingh Pandher on Saturday demanded that the Centre should bring an ordinance on giving a legal guarantee to MSP, a key demand of farmers currently camping at the Shambhu and the Khanauri points of t꧋he Punjab-Haryana border.
The demand comes a day before the fourth round of talks between farm leader♔s and Union ministers over the🐼ir various demands.
"If it (Centre) brings out an ordinance, it can bring it overnight, if it wants to. If the government wants a resoluti⛎on of the farmers' protest, then it should bring an ordinance with immediate effect that it will enact a law on MSP, then discussions can proceed further," Pandher told reporters at the Shambhu border. As far as the modalities are concerned, Pandher said any ordinance has a six-month vaℱlidity.
On the issue of farm debt waiver, Pandher saiꦬd the government is saying that the loan amount has to be assessed. The government can collect data from banks in this regard, he said adding, "It is a question of will power."
Union ministers Arjun Munda, Piyush Goyal and Nityanand Rai and farmer leaders wi൲ll meet on Sunday for the fourth round of talks. The two sides met earlier on February 8, 12 and 15 but those talks remainedღ inconclusive.
On the fifth day of their "Delhi Chalo" march -- called by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Ki𒁏san Mazdoor Morcha -- the farmers stayed put at the two border points of Punjab and Haryana as they press the Centre to accept their demands, including a legal guaranteeꦯ of a minimum support price (MSP) for crops.
Besides a legal guarantee for MSP, the farmers are demanding implementation of the Swaminathan Commission's recommendations, pension for farmers and farm labourers, farm debt waiver, no hike in electricity tariff, withdrawal of police cases and "justice" for the victims of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence, re🅷instatement of the Land Acquisition Act - 2013, and compensation to the families of the farmers who died during a previous agitation in 2020-21.
