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New Delhi, Dec 3 (IANS) Days after the Parliament repealed the three contentious farm laws, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) will be holding a crucial meeting on Saturday to discuss whether to end the over-an-year- old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.
Referring to alleged reports of snooping of prominent citizens using Israeli Pegasus spyware, senior BJP leader and union minister Meenakshi Lekhi on Thursday said that these kinds of stories are concocted, fabricated and have no evidence.
On Wednesday, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal gave permission to the Jantar Mantar demonstration on the condition that a maximum of 200 protesters will be allowed till August 9 between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Sidhu sent an invite, signed by some 62 legislators, through working presidents, Kuljit Singh Nagra and Sangat Singh Gilzian, to the 'sulking' Chief Minister to attend the swearing-in ceremony.
In a statement here, Badal said it was condemnable that the NDA government had targeted Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar and the Bharat Samachar group because they had posed tough questions to the government in keeping with high standards of journalism.
In a written reply to parliamentarian Binoy Viswam in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State (External Affairs) V.A. Muraleedharan said during the unprecedented crisis, the international community came forward with offers of solidarity and assistance for specific medicines and equipment that were not immediately available in the country.
