DM Monitoring
Ghaziabad: Farmers protesting the contentious new farm laws are ready to talk if the Centre invites them, Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait said, maintaining that the dialogue would resume where it had ended on January 22 and the demands remain unchanged.
He said for the talks to resume, the government should invite the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body representing the protesters who are camping at the three border points of Delhi at Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur since November 2020.
The talks with the government would resume from the same point where it had ended on January 22. The demands are also the same – all three ‘black’ farm laws should be repealed, a new law made to ensure MSP (minimum support price) for crops, Tikait was quoted as saying in a statement issued by BKU media in-charge Dharmendra Malik.
The BKU national spokesperson’s remarks came in response to Haryana home minister Anil Vij urging Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar to resume talks with protesting farmers amid the coronavirus scare looming large. Maintaining that a surge in the coronavirus cases is being seen across the country and the situation is turning bad in Haryana too, Vij said he is worried about the farmers protesting on the state borders with Delhi.
The protesters and the government last had a formal dialogue over the contentious issue on January 22 but the impasse continued. On January 26, the protesters had carried out a ‘tractor parade’ in Delhi which had escalated into violence involving farmers and the police in the national capital.
Earlier, Protesting farmers on Tuesday blocked a BJP MP’s car, smashing its windscreen as he tried to leave a party worker’s home, police said.
Kurukshetra MP Nayab Singh Saini was at Shahbad Markanda, 20 kms from here. In two separate incidents, groups of farmers raised slogans against Women and Child Development Minister Kamlesh Dhanda in Kaithal district and state BJP chief O.P. Dhankar shortly before he was to arrive for a party event in Panipat.
Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar described the attack on Saini as “murderous” and added that while it is the democratic right of farmers to hold a protest, violence will not be tolerated.
Farmers protesting over the three contentious farm laws were sitting on a ‘dharna’ in front of Jannayak Janta Party MLA Ram Karan Kala’s home when they learnt that Saini had reached a BJP worker’s home in nearby Majri mohalla. They then gathered outside the BJP worker’s home while Saini had tea inside, police said.
According to Saini, when he sat in the vehicle and tried to leave the place, over 50 protesters ‘gheraoed’ it. A few of them jumped over the vehicle’s bonnet while someone smashed the windscreen with a stone or a lathi. He said it was with great difficulty that the police got him out of the area in the SUV.
The MP said those who indulge in acts of violence against elected representatives cannot be farmers. Such people are defaming farmers, he added. Police were deployed in large numbers in the area after the incident. Kurukshetra Superintendent of Police Himanshu Garg said police are investigating the matter and would file a case against those found responsible for the violence.
