Farmers protesting at the Delhi borders for last 17 days said they are willing to come back for talks but there is going back on their demand of the repeal of the controversial three farm laws, which they said were not made for them but for traders.

“These three laws were not made keeping the farmers’ interest in mind, instead they are made for traders. We want them to be repealed,” said Kanwalpreet Singh Pannu, President of Kisan Sangharsh Committee, Punjab, one of the 32 Punjab farmer outfits participating in the agitation.

“If the government wants to hold talks, we are ready, but our main demand will remain the scrapping of the three laws. We will move onto our other demands only after that,” the farmer leader said.

Meanwhile, Dushyant Chautala, Deputy Chief Minister of Haryana and leader of Janta Jannayak Party, met Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar in his office on Saturday. Similarly, a group of Haryana farmers, who are part of the Farmer Producer Organisations in the State, also called on Tomar to tell him that they want these three farm laws to stay, but with the amendments that the government has proposed.

Indicating that the farmer agitation would intensify in coming days, Pannu said thousands of farmers from Rajasthan will march towards Delhi from Shajahanpur in Rajasthan on Sunday morning. Besides, women farmers from across the country would come to Singhu border where the largest contingent of farmers are camping by next week. “We are getting facilities made for accommodating women farmers. They are expected to be here from December 15,” Pannu said, adding that a large number of farmers are already on their way from Punjab currently breaking barricades put on their way by the Haryana government.

He also said that farmers across the country would picket district collectorates on December 14 and all leaders of the farmer agitation in the capital would sit on a hunger strike on that day at Singhu border in solidarity.

Thronged at toll gates

On Saturday, farmers in different parts of the country, particularly in Haryana, Telangana and other States thronged at toll gates on the National Highways letting vehicles to pass by without paying toll charges.

All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), which along with Punjab farmer groups and Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangha, formed the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, slammed the Centre effort to defame the movement of the farmers charging that it does not wish to solve the main issues raised by the farmers.

In a statement issued on Saturday, AIKSCC working group said the Centre first claimed that the entire movement of farmers was sponsored by political parties. Then it said it was sponsored by foreign forces. Then it said it was a Punjab-specific movement that has pro-Khalistani forces.

Then they said Farmer Unions have walked away from talks, even though unions participated in all talks, never refused to come for talks and explained their position to the government in clear terms that that they want the repeal of the laws.

“After having faced repression in Punjab initially, the Punjab farmers had to brave through a merciless assault on them, barricades, excavated roads, water cannons in the cold, tear gas shelling, to reach their own capital and talk to their government. Now the government is blaming the farmers first for intensifying their movement, then for speaking out against repression and illegal arrests,” AIKSCC said in a hard-hitting statement.

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