Union minister Pralhad Joshi to head central team in meeting with farmer leaders

Chandigarh: Union minister Pralhad Joshi will lead the central team that will hold a meeting with farmers' representatives to discuss their various demands, including a legal guarantee for crop MSP, on Friday, sources said.

A 28-member delegation of farmers will participate in the meeting.

Joshi, the Union Minister of consumer affairs, food and public distribution, will lead the central team, the sources said.

Punjab Agriculture Minister Gurmeet Singh Khuddian will also be present, they added.

The meeting will be held at the Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration, Punjab, in Chandigarh.

It comes after a year-long protest by farmers over a legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP) for crops, among other demands.

A 28-member delegation of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, which are spearheading the ongoing stir, will participate in the meeting, according to farmers.

Farmer leader Jagjit Singh Dallewal, who is on an indefinite fast, said he would also attend the meeting.

He will be taken to the meeting venue from the Khanauri protest site in an ambulance.

Dallewal, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) convenor, has been on an indefinite hunger strike at the Khanauri border point since November 26 to press the Centre on various demands, including crop MSP.

Prominent farmer leaders who will be part of the delegation are Sarwan Singh Pandher, Abhimanyu Kohar, Kaka Singh Kotra, Sukhjit Singh, PR Pandian, Arun Sinha, Lakhwinder Singh, Jaswinder Longowal, MS Rai, Nand Kumar, Balwant Singh Behramke and Inderjit Singh Kotbudha.

On January 18, a delegation of senior officials from the Union agriculture ministry, led by Joint Secretary Priya Ranjan, invited representatives from the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha for a meeting to discuss their demands.

In a letter addressed to the two organisations, it was stated that a meeting with ministers of the Centre and the Punjab government regarding the farmers' demands had been convened on February 14.

This is in continuation of the previous meetings held with the farmers' representatives last year, according to the letter.

Dallewal had agreed to take medical aid following the invitation but refused to end his fast-unto-death.

Four rounds of meetings had taken place between central ministers and the protesting farmers in February 2024 but the talks remained inconclusive.

A panel of three Union ministers -- Arjun Munda, Piyush Goyal and Nityanand Rai -- had held talks with farmers' representatives on February 18 last year.

At that time, the farmers had rejected the Centre's proposal of buying pulses, maize and cotton crops at MSP by government agencies for five years.

Kisan Mazdoor Morcha leader Pandher on Thursday said they would make efforts to nudge the Centre towards resolving the farmers' issues.

Farmers, under the banner of the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (Non-Political) and the Kisan Mazdoor Morcha, have been camping at the Shambhu and the 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 for crop MSP, the farmers are demanding a debt waiver, pension for farmers and farm labourers, no hike in electricity tariffs, 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 farmers who died during a previous agitation in 2020-21 are also part of their demands.