In what could be seen as an embarrassment to the centre, Meghalaya Governor Satya Pal Malik extended full support to the farmers' protest against the farm laws and cautioned the government against offending the farmers.
''The government must shun its arrogance and accept the genuine demands of the farmers....it should not persecute the farmers....the government is following the wrong path...it should know that the farmers will not back down,'' Malik said while speaking at a function in Uttar Pradesh's Baghpat district on Sunday.
Malik, a native of Baghpat, also asked the Centre to guarantee the MSP (minimum support price). ''I think the farmers will relent if the centre comes out with some sort of legal guarantee on the issue of MSP,'' he said.
He said that he had intervened when he came to know about the move to arrest Rakesh Tikait, the prominent farmer leader at the forefront of the protests at the borders of Delhi.
Malik claimed that he had placed the demands of the farmers before Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah and urged them not to send the farmers "empty-handed". ''I have told them (Prime Minister and Home Minister) not to use force on the farmers.....they (Sikh farmers) will never forget it....not even in 300 years,'' he added.
The Meghalaya Governor also claimed that after the 'Operation Blue Star' in 1984 during which Army jawans had entered the Golden Temple in Amritsar to capture Sikh militant leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the then prime minister Indira Gandhi had performed 'Mahamrityunjay Mantra Jaap' (a special puja to please Lord Shiva for long life).
He quoted former Congress leader Arun Nehru and said that Indira Gandhi had told the latter that the Sikh community would never forgive her for damaging the 'Akal Takht'.
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