SKM's crucial Saturday meet to decide agitation's future course
Darpan News Desk IANS, 03 Dec, 2021 11:51 AM
New Delhi, Dec 3 (IANS) Days after the Parliament repealed the three contentious farm laws, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) will be holding a crucial meeting on Saturday to discuss whether to end the over-an-year- old agitation, among other issues.
Reiterating their demands from before the government announced to repeal the laws, the SKM - a consortium of 40-odd farmers' agitation - has been demanding legal backing for, among others, Minimum Support Price (MSP), withdrawal of cases against the farmers' families since last year, and compensation to the farmers' families that died in the last one year during agitation.
The meeting will be held at the Singhu Border camp site, which acted as the headquarters for the SKM.
Soon after the Prime Minister's announcement on November 19 about repeal of farm laws, the SKM had written a formal letter to him putting forth their demands in no uncertain means.
"With no formal assurance from Government of India as yet, the farmers struggle for their still-pending demands continues. SKM has not received any reply from the government in response to the letter to the Prime Minister, where SKM had raised six key demands as a pre-condition for withdrawal of the farm movement," a statement from the SKM said on Friday.
Meanwhile, the permanent morchas in dozens of places continue at Delhi borders and elsewhere, "reflecting the discipline and determination that protesting farmers have", the SKM release said.
The Home Ministry's response came after the Shiromani Akali Dal President Sukhbir Singh Badal's tweet apprehending that the Centre was planning to appoint a full- fledged Administrator for Chandigarh.
The food claimed the lives of three of her family members including the father, younger sister and elder brother last week. The police said that the 15-year-old girl had mixed weedicides into food to 'punish' her brother and mother who used to rebuke and scold her over household chores.
The deceased, a resident of Nachinola village in North Goa, was missing since Wednesday morning and a missing complaint was filed by her father with a local police station.
The area has been cordoned off and additional forces have reached the spot. Police said the terrorists involved in firing have been trapped and an operation has been started by the police and security forces.
Union ministers Piyush Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan, Pralhad Joshi, Anurag Thakur, Bhupender Yadav, V. Muraleedharan and Arjun Ram Meghwal held a joint press conference at the Shastri Bhavan here on Thursday and condemned the 'unruly' and 'violent' behaviour of the opposition parties led by the Congress.
