Farmers postpone march, bill to scrap farm laws in Parliament on Monday

Farmers on Saturday decided to defer their “sansad-chalo”, or “march to the Parliament” call, two days before the Centre is scheduled to introduce a bill for cancelling the farm laws. The farm laws had led to nation-wide protests. Thousands have been camping at the borders of Delhi for more than a year to demand repeal of the farm laws.

“We are postponing the march. The government has promised us that the laws will be repealed in Parliament on the 29th,” farmer leader Dr Darshan Pal was quoted saying, after a meeting of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, a group of farmer unions leading the fight against the three farm laws.

“We had written a letter to the Prime Minister, in which we had made many demands, including quashing of police cases against farmers, minimum support price to be guaranteed, compensation to families of farmers martyred in the movement, cancelling cases filed against farmers for stubble burning etc.” he was quoted saying. “We will wait for the Prime Minister’s letter till December 4. We will announce our next course of action later,” Dr Pal said.

Earlier today, Union Agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar urged farmers to end their agitation. He said a committee will be formed to discuss issues raised by the farmers.

Last week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the farm laws would be rolled back. Farmer unions, however, maintained that the protest would go on till the laws are formally repealed and all demands, including the legal guarantee on MSP, are met.

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