Punjab farmers, who are protesting against the Centre’s new farm laws, rejected Union home minister Amit Shah’s proposal for an early discussion on their grievances, conditional to their moving to a designated protest site. The farmers said the government should have approached with “an open heart” and not put preconditions. The farmers’ decision came after a meeting this morning, shortly after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, showed support for farm laws in his radio address Mann ki Baat, saying the “agricultural reforms” have “unshackled” the farmers and given them “new rights and opportunities”.
Here Are The Top 5 Points :
- Contending that the government is imposing conditions on the talks, the farmers said they would sit on the borders of Delhi for now. Swaraj India chief Yogendra Yadav is part of a 7-member committee of farmers that took the decision to turn down the offer.
- The government should “stop laying down any conditions… should stop assuming that the dialogue can be about “an explanation to farmers about the benefits of the Acts” and should come straight out with a proposal,” a farmers’ body said. “The force deployment all over the city is creating an atmosphere of terror and apprehension amongst the protesting farmers and the people of Delhi,” the farmers said.
- “The agricultural reforms in the past few days have opened new doors of possibilities for our farmers,” PM Modi said in Mann ki Baat. “The demands that have been made by farmers for years, that every political party, at some point or the other, made the promise to fulfill, those demands have been met,” he added.
- The farmers said they would sit on the borders of Delhi for now. Swaraj India chief Yogendra Yadav is part of a 7-member committee of farmers that took the decision to turn down the offer.The farmers fear that the protest spots the government is suggesting can become jails – a concern that started after the Delhi Police suggestion that they be jailed in stadiums. The Arvind Kejriwal government had turned down the proposal, saying the protesters were Delhi’s “guests”.
- On Saturday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had assured the protesters that the government was ready to deliberate on “every problem and demand”. The Centre, he said, will hold talks with the farmers’ unions on December 3 and if they want discussions before that, they will have to shift their protest to a designated venue.
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