SKM to hold 15 more farmers' conclave ahead of Feb 26 Delhi march

Farmers' outfit Samyukta Kisan Morcha (non-political) on Sunday said it has given a call for "Delhi Chalo" on February 26 with seven major demands, and in the run-up to it, 15 more "Kisan Mahapanchayats" will be organised in various parts of the country in next one and half months.

Six Kisan Mahapanchayats (mega conclave of farmers) have already been organised in different parts of the country, like -- Indore - Madhya Pradesh, Bhubaneswar - Orissa, Ludhiana and Moga - Punjab, Palakkad - Kerala, Chennai - Tamil Nadu, Bengaluru - Karnataka -- in the last 15 days, it said.

Sharing these details with the media, farmers' leaders also stressed that democratic and secular values of the country must be protected.

They emphasised that the recent suspension of opposition members of Parliament in both Houses, and the alleged "bad behavior" of the government towards Olympian Wrestlers in order to "protect" Bharatiya Janata Party MP Brij Bhushan Saran are not good signs of our democratic values.

Farmer leaders -- Kuruburu Shanthakumar (Karnataka), Jagjeet Singh Dallewal (Punjab), KV Biju (Kerala), Abhimanyu Kohar and Lakhwinder Singh Aulakh (Haryana), Sachin Mohapatra (Odisha), Arun Sinha (Bihar), Ravidutt Singh (Madhya Pradesh), Shankar Darekar (Maharashtra), Narayan Reddy, Basavraj Patil, Deva Kumar (Karnataka) -- were present.

According to the Morcha, the demands which Delhi Chalo has been called include: MSP should be guaranteed as per C2+50 percent formula and, as promised, a law should be made to guarantee it; all the farmers should be made debt free, and all agricultural loan must be waived.

The State government's land acquisition laws taking Land Acquisition Act 2015 as a model must be immediately withdrawn and Land Acquisition Act 2013 must be implemented to ensure 70 per cent of farmer's written permission and compensation four times the base rate plus interest before any land acquisition.

Further, the demands includes increasing import duty on all agricultural products to bound tariffs, and India should come out of the WTO and cancel all Free Trade Agreements and negotiation.

Also, no privatisation of electricity boards; agriculture and retail must be reserved only for small enterprises. FDI in agriculture and all formats of retail, including e-commerce, shall be banned. Policy and law to prevent corporatisation of agriculture and retail trade; and farmers' pension should be increased to Rs 5,000 per month.

Noting that the Ministry of Agriculture entered into an agreement with Samyuktha Kisan Morcha on December 9, 2021, the farmers' leaders said they ceased the Delhi border agitation on December 11 that year. However till date, the government has not fulfilled the agreement, they said.

Cases against all farmers are yet to be withdrawn in courts in Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, and other states. Compensation is also pending in cases where protesting farmers were injured, they said.

"Justice for the farmer families who lost their loved ones in the Lakhimpur Kheri massacre, including the arrest of Union Minister Ajay Mishra Teni, the main culprit of the massacre, is still pending," they alleged.

In a statement, they said the government continues to implement more anti-farmer policies, such as negotiating Free Trade Agreements.

Despite the agitation against the three agricultural laws aimed to resist corporatisation, yet the Central government is facilitating corporatisation through a more perilous approach by collaborating with corporate houses in digitalisation projects, they said.