Agricultural workers protesting three controversial agrarian acts adopted last year said they were going to march outside the Parliament and to demonstrate outside parliament on Sunday, setting the stage for a new stalemate between farm unions and government. Agricultural laws were enacted last year.
Every day, during the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) Sunday, a group of about 200 farmers would protest against the Center’s three farm policies outside Parliament.
A platform of over 35 agricultural organisations leading the protests, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha dismissed the offer from the government to hold up the three laws in order to examine the concerns the farmers could have had with some aspects, demanding the government drop legislation totally.
At a news briefing, the umbrella organisation claimed that, two days before the session begins, all opposition MPs will receive a “chetavani patra” (a warning letter), to protest the bill within the House.
“An ultimatum this is. We can’t wait forever, and we have to walk into the Capital,” stated a farmer leader, Gurnam Singh Charuni. For its monsoon session, Parliament meets on 19 July.
The farmer’s syndicates declared that they will step up their protests, move demonstrators with their tractors to Parliament and organise national demonstrations.
Tens of thousands of farmers set tent in five locations around Delhi borders in November last year – from where they were demonstrating—Singhu, Ghaziabad, Tikri, Dhansa and Sahjahanpur (on the Rajasthan-Haryana border)
In order to bring investment and growth to the agricultural sector that sustains about half of the population, the government said adjustments in the agriculture system inside the country foreseen under the regulated legislation were necessary.
Farmers say that the law would run counter to their interests. “The core issue is that government legislation focuses on large companies that are against farmers’ and consumers’ interests. Kavitha Kuruganti from the Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture Alliance asked, and she had been nominated by farmers in talks conducted earlier this year to fight with the administration.
