Next round of talks between farmer leaders, Centre begins

Farmer leaders and representatives arrived at Vigyan Bhawan here on Friday for another round of talks with representatives of the Centre, including Union Agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar.

"The government has not made up its mind to repeal the three farm laws and to ensure the government procurement of all the crops. But we are not going to budge from our demands of a complete repeal of these laws," said Sarvan Singh Pandher, General Secretary, Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee.

On Thursday, one of fronts of protesting farmers, the Samkyukt Kisan Morcha rejected the government's offer to put the three farm laws on hold for one-and-half-years to break the impasse over their protest against the same. They said that they want nothing but a complete repeal of all the three legislations.

The Supreme Court had also in its interim order on January 12, moved to stay the implementation of the agricultural laws.

Farman Singh Sandhu, one of the farmers' leaders ahead of today's talks said: "We are going with lot of hope. It's possible the government will start the process of rolling the laws back and start discussing on MSP".

On the question of the proposed tractor rally, he added, "We are all ready to enter Delhi with 12 lakh tractors on the 72nd Republic Day through Outer Ring Road. We have rejected the alternate route of KMP Expressway given by the Delhi police".

The farmers' unions are protesting against the three contentious farm laws for almost two months now at several Delhi border points. So far, no agreement has been struck between both the parties even after 10 rounds of talks.

( With inputs from ANI )