Farmers protests 2024: During the ongoing farmers’ protest at the Shambhu and Khanauri points of the Punjab-Haryana border in northern India, farmer leader Sarwan Singh Pandher has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi administration to bring an ordinance to ensure a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP). The demand was intensified ahead of the fourth round of talks between farmer leaders and ministers in PM Modi’s cabinet on Feb 18.
The upcoming round of talks will involve Union ministers Arjun Munda, Piyush Goyal, and Nityanand Rai alongside farmer representatives. The MSP remains a key demand for farmers encamped at the border points.
Pandher called upon the government to make “political” decisions over the MSP and called for the swift enactment of an ordinance to provide legal backing to the same. He was quoted as saying by the Press Trust of India: “If the government wants resolution of farmers’ protests, then it should bring out an ordinance with immediate effect that it will enact a law on MSP, and then discussion can proceed further.”
Addressing the issue of modalities, Pandher explained that any ordinance typically holds a six-month validity. Regarding the demand for “C2 plus 50 per cent” as per the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendation, he suggested that the government could implement this under the existing “A2 plus FL” formula.
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Another prominent farmer leader, Jagjit Singh Dallewal, echoed Pandher’s sentiments, and urged the government to introduce an ordinance that is swiftly implemented and converted into law within six months.
Pandher further criticised the government’s practice of importing crops like pulses, suggesting that guaranteeing MSP on such crops would encourage local production.
Farmers’ protest 2024: What are farmers demanding?
Farmers are pushing for their demands including a legal guarantee for MSP, implementation of the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations, pension for farmers, and various other agricultural reforms.
The farmers’ list of demands further include issues ranging from farm debt waivers, no hike in electricity tariff, withdrawal of police cases, justice for victims of the 2021 Lakhimpur Kheri violence, reinstatement of the Land Acquisition Act – 2013, as well as the compensation for the families of farmers who died during the previous agitation in 2020-21.
(With inputs from agencies)
