Forming new panel is not a solution, says farmer leaders on SC proposal

Protesting farmers' associations on Wednesday said that a new panel to break the stalemate over the three new laws on agriculture, as the Supreme Court suggested, is not a solution, because they want the laws to be entirely withdrawn.

They said that before the laws were passed by Parliament, the government should have created a farmers' committee along with others.

They claimed that it could form a panel with government representatives and farmer unions to settle the deadlock, following the Supreme Court's earlier announcement.

Abhimanyu Kohar, one of the 40 protesting farmer unions in the Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sabha, has already declined a recent government offer to join a panel of these kinds.

The formation by the court of a new committee is no response. We want the three agricultural laws to be completely abolished. Previously, a coalition of central ministers and farmer unions had several rounds of talks, which were like a commission itself said Kohar.

Previously, the Supreme court announced that a committee of government representatives and farmers' unions throughout the country should be established, in order to solve the ongoing crisis.

The top judiciary heard a lot of requests for authorities to remove farmers from the roads immediately, saying that commuters faced difficulties due to the obstruction and collections could lead to a rise in the number of cases in Covid 19.

The Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan), which led the agitation at the border of Tikri, has said that a new committee is now meaningless.

Sukhdev Singh, Secretary General of BKU Ekta Ugrahan's Punjab said that the Government should have formed a committee of farmers and others prior to the implementation of the new laws on agriculture. At this point, it would have made no sense of a new committee.  

But Rakesh Tikait, leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, said they have just seen media reports about the SC order right and now they'd like to see a real copy of the Order and then see what the government's got to say.

The negotiations obviously have not worked and were bound to fail. They are saying they are willing to negotiate said the bench presided by Chief Justice SA Bobde.

"Yeah, we're ready to speak to farmers," answered Mehta, the representative of the Centre."

For the last 20 days, tens of thousands of farmers have camped in Delhi in protest against the three laws which they say would lead to the abolition of the mandi system and the minimum support cost mechanism.

The farmers' leaders on Tuesday said that they would "revoke" the Center in hardening their hold on three new agriculture laws. 

The government has planned to implement the three farm legislation in September as major reforms in the farming sector that will abolish the intermediaries and permit farmers to sell anywhere in the world.